Until I wrap myself inside your arms I cannot rest
by thisisnotmybeautifulhouse
Summary: Follows "Phantom Pain... if you're not there ": It starts the way that most things do with the two of them - they're arguing. Or, more to the point, Stiles is arguing and Derek is stonewalling him, right up until the point that he loses his patience and "stonewalling" becomes a physical act. Follows canon until Restraint and then bids it a fond farewell.
1. To taste your beating heart

**Some of you may already have started this over on Ao3. I've been lazy so far about reposting it here to , but I've decided to post a chapter a day. That may or may not mean that the fic is complete on Ao3 before I actually catch up with posting here, but I'm not entirely sure since I'm dealing with a case of writer's block at the moment. (Which is totally what you want someone to read in an A/N when you're just starting out a fic, right? ... Right.) No, the point is, while this is a work in progress, I have every intention of wrapping it up in the next few weeks, mostly because classes will be starting back on the 27th, and I don't want to start the semester with the specter of this unfinished fic hanging over my head.**

**So, yeah.**

* * *

It starts the way that most things do with the two of them - they're arguing. Or, more to the point, _Stiles_ is arguing and Derek is stonewalling him, right up until the point that he loses his patience and "stonewalling" becomes a physical act. There's tension in the air, and Stiles can practically feel the need that Scott has to step in and demand that Derek let him go - until it simply isn't there anymore.

He chances a glance in his best friend's direction, and notices a startled, contemplative look on his face. It's almost as if he's trying to decide whether it - whatever _it_ actually happens to be - is a good thing, or something to be concerned about. The salient point in all of it though, is the fact that Scott will not be challenging Derek any time soon, which is a good thing, because from what he's heard about the incident at the ice rink, going up against the alpha is an awesome idea if you're looking to get your ass handed to you, and a terrible idea if you're actually attempting to accomplish something constructive.

When he looks back at Derek, there's something slightly off - something missing. It takes him a moment to realize that it's the anger. There simply - isn't any. He's irritated, definitely, but he's not anywhere near threatening actual bodily harm, and that's odd and kind of confusing, because if Derek isn't feeling the need to rip out any throats with his admittedly awesome set of teeth, then why is Stiles stuck in the middle of a Derek-and-subway-wall sandwich?

It's only when he realizes that the room has gone oddly silent that he remembers why Mr. Why-No-I-Never-_Have_-Heard-of-Personal-Space became irritated in the first place, and then Stiles gamely takes up the cause once more. They continue arguing for another ten minutes or so, and eventually manage to eke out a compromise that leaves them both, if not happy, at least not entirely dissatisfied.

Immediately after their "discussion" concludes, Stiles glances down at his cellphone to check for messages, since his father has become even more overprotective and inclined to check in lately, and he squawks, propelled into action by the lateness of the hour. "Scott, dude, we have to go, or my dad's gonna kill me, and believe it or not, I actually value my life."

They leave, muttering hasty goodbyes to Derek and the remaining betas, who look sort of like they're posing for the cover of their latest punk rock album, all sprawling and naturally (or supernaturally, if it boils down to semantics) sensual. The entire time, Stiles feels a pair of eyes on him like a physical weight.

So, that's the first time it happens. At first, he brushes the matter off, because they have much bigger and more scaly things to deal with. The thing is, it keeps _happening_, and eventually Stiles is forced to acknowledge that this probably isn't something he should just accept as normal, because clearly there's something at work here that he simply doesn't understand.


	2. I'm aching to attack

As someone helpfully reminded me yesterday, I forgot to give credit for the title of this fic. The title and the chapter names each come from Florence and the Machine's _Howl_, because if there's a better song for Derek and Stiles, I haven't found it yet.

* * *

"Yeah, because kidnapping him worked out _so well_ the first time! Learn from my bad choices, alright? Especially considering the fact that my dad's probably more likely to pull out the handcuffs and ask questions later where you're concerned." What do you know? They're arguing again. The rest of their little rag-tag pack is looking on with an odd mix of discomfort and enjoyment, and Stiles gets the feeling that if it wouldn't risk Derek's displeasure, they would mutter, "Mom and Dad are fighting again," amongst themselves, and snicker semi-uncomfortably at his expense, and the overall oddity of their situation.

The thing is, if Stiles never pipes up and tells Derek when his ideas are utterly _terrible_, no one will. For all that Scott told Derek they would be protecting the good folks of Beacon Hills from Jackson 'his way,' he's strangely reluctant, now that he's actually part of the pack, to speak up for what he wants. When confronted about the somewhat less than vocal behavior he's started exhibiting around Derek, Scott claimed that it felt wrong going against his alpha's authority in front of the others in the pack. Stiles never has, and likely never will have such compunctions, and so he lets Derek know in no uncertain terms when he thinks the alpha is being an idiot. He's finding more and more reasons to be glad he told Peter Hale to take his offer of the bite and shove it. _Someone_ needs to exert a little independence around here.

The staggering part of the whole thing is that Derek actually _lets him_. It's almost like the guy values his opinion, or something, for all his growly, shovey ways. And - whoops, yep, there he goes, crowding into Stiles' space and asserting the fact that "We've been at this for two weeks, and we still haven't been able to predict his next move. How the hell are we supposed to find his master if we can't even find _him_?"

To the uninformed, this might seem like a fallacy, considering the fact that all the teenagers in the room attend Beacon Hills high school and have at least one class with Jackson every day. Unfortunately, it's far more complicated than that, because after the library debacle, Jackson has never transformed on campus again, which means they have to track him outside of school hours. The truly sucky part is that they can track his scent while he's in human form, but as soon as he goes all Voldemort-wannabe, they lose him and don't even realize it, because Jackson's human scent lingers before it fades, and unless they can manage to get a visual on him, they think he's still right where he was before snaking out.

"And who do you plan on sending? Scott and I are out because, oddly enough, the only one willing to ignore that stupid restraining order is Mr. Harris," and he would totally rat the man out to his dad in a subtle way, were he not in so much trouble that he's probably going to be making it up to the man for the rest of his _life_, because Mr. Harris is a special, non-snakely brand of evil, "so we can't go anywhere near him. Isaac's on the lacrosse team, but Jackson knows at this point to avoid him and Erica, since they haven't exactly been subtle, and then there's the fact that Boyd exposed himself pretty spectacularly during a game a few weeks ago, and Jackson's not going to risk going within a hundred _miles_ of you right now. The only one who _might_ be able to manage it is Allison, who you won't work with because she's been cursed to be related to the craziest group of human beings known to wolf. It can't be done."

Derek growls, just a little bit, and it raises the hairs on the back of Stiles' neck, though not in fear - he's long since gotten over _that_ particular sensation whenever in His Grumpiness's presence. He's not entirely sure _what_ he's feeling, but he continues staring at Derek steadily, waiting for him to capitulate. Instead, he leans down and presses his forehead against Stiles' own, causing his heart to give a strange lurch. Derek stays there, eyes closing, and Stiles tries not to think about how weird this is, especially with the peanut gallery looking on in the periphery. "It's not like we'd be doing it in broad daylight."

"So, what?" He asks, distracting himself from the growing _something_ in the pit of his stomach. Stiles doesn't know what it is, and he refuses to examine it too closely. Now is totally not the time. "You're planning to sneak into his house and snatch him from his bed in the dead of night? It won't _work_." They've discovered that Jackson's more likely to give into his serpentine ways when he's tired, when he's less in control and aware of the world. And the kanima must lurk just beneath the surface of the guy's more socially palatable skin, because any time a member of the pack comes within scenting distance, he makes like a snake and slithers away into the night, leaving nary a scale in his wake. The word 'frustrating' doesn't even begin to cover their current situation.

He can _feel_ the calming breath that Derek takes in, and it's so strangely intimate, the two of them sharing oxygen, and entirely at odds with the topic at hand. "Then what do you suggest, Stiles? Do you have a better solution?"

As much as it pains him, Stiles sighs and admits, "No. Not unless we can convince Danny to keep an eye on Jackson for us, which doesn't seem likely, since he probably already knows all about our 'prank' gone wrong." _How many different ways am I going to have to suffer for that particular error in judgment?_ The thing is, he can't really see any other way he could have handled that situation at the time, other than leaving Jackson's cellphone at the club or in some remote part of the forest. How the hell was he supposed to know that Jackson was too emotionally stunted to use the phrase 'I love you?' Then again - _Jackson_. That pretty much says it all.

The hand protecting the back of his head from coming into contact with the wall squeezes gently, as though Derek can sense that Stiles' mind is getting away from the conversation at hand. Stiles fights a shudder at the sensation. No one has rubbed his head like this since his mother, and he'd forgotten until just now how good it can feel. "Boyd, Scott, and I will try tonight."

In response to this, all Stiles can muster is another sigh and the slumping of his body. The movement has the unintentional side-effect of exposing his neck to Derek, who pulls back and stares at it intently before leaning in and skimming his nose along the soft flesh. Stiles swallows convulsively, and after a moment, Derek withdraws, departing from the room.

"Well," Erica says, voice strained slightly, though she's clearly striving for an upbeat tone, "Stiles and I are going to get pizza. Tell us what you want, or it'll be covered in mushrooms and artichoke hearts."

By rote, Stiles responds with a cautionary, "Scott's allergic to mushrooms." Then, his brain catches up with his mouth, and he shakes his head. "Or at least, he used to be. Let's not take the risk, okay? I mean, what if Jackson decides to show up and cover us all in his special blend of shower gel, and you start seizing, and Scott stops breathing because we let him eat mushrooms and then his system started shutting down? I mean, we don't really know if the two things are related or not, but if kanima venom can trigger your epilepsy, then it can probably trigger other things and... I'll grab my jacket." The four betas are staring at him, each in varying stages of fond and exasperated, and Stiles can feel the mortified heat creeping into his sadly pale cheeks, which should be impossible, since Derek's little display has already left him doing a bang up impression of a ripe tomato.

His _life_.


	3. You are the moon that breaks the night

**After Stiles, Erica is my darling, my favorite - even though I'm mildly ticked about the bit of idiocy she and Boyd pulled in 2x11. I'd like to think that the rest of the gang swoops in and saves Stiles, Boyd, and Erica and Batman and Catwoman become BFFs.**

**But since that probably ****_won't_**** happen on the show, we'll just have to have something similar here.**

* * *

Because Stiles is secretly - or not-so-secretly, depending upon whose opinion is sought - a bit of a troll, albeit a well-meaning one, he puts on _Seven Days to the Wolves_ as soon as they pull onto the street leading away from the new wolf den. Erica shoots him a look that's one part amused, one part insulted, and two parts incredulous, and then turns her attention toward the side window, waiting him out.

He lasts for a few turns and one light before asking, "So, why do you need me to come with you to pick up supplies for our intrepid pack of bottomless pits? Not that I mind, but I would have given you my key." He's done it before. Scott had watched the exchange with eyes widened in betrayal, because Stiles generally never allows anyone to drive his darling Jeep, but Erica had simply held out her hand and informed him that she was getting Chinese for everyone, and wouldn't it be easier if she could actually drive to the restaurant, instead of walk, because that way she could actually get all the food home in one piece? That was last week, when Stiles was suffering from a cold and therefore rendered listless and somewhat less than enthusiastic about being the pack chauffeur, and so he'd plopped the keys into her waiting palm and told her to treat his lady with the respect she deserved. On Monday, Isaac had tried the same thing, only to have Stiles tell him 'no' in no uncertain terms. Boyd and Scott had been amused, right up until they realized the driving ban still applied to them, as well.

Her ruby-red shelacked lips - and at some point he really needs to convince her to go a little lighter on the stuff, because it looks like enough goo to drown the poor, unsuspecting guy who actually kisses them - part in what is rapidly becoming her trademark enigmatic grin. "You'll find out soon enough."

"What? Why not now? We have another," he considers the street they're on and concludes, "five minutes before we reach Patricio's. You could totally tell me now."

"I could," she acknowledges dryly, "but in spite of the fact that I could probably walk away from a car accident unscathed, _you're_ a little less impact-resistant, and I don't really want to have to explain how you managed to maim or kill yourself on a trip for _pizza_."

"So it's bad, right?" He cuts his eyes over and notes that her expression has settled into something pensive, and then throws his hands up in the air before returning them to the steering wheel. "I'm dying of cancer, and no one will tell me, am I right? I'm right, I'm totally right. This blows, like, beyond belief. I'm going to die a virgin. An _unkissed_ virgin. How wrong is that? I hang out with werewolves and track giant man-eviscerating lizards, but I'm going to die with no hair and rotted gums in a hospital bed a year from now, and my poor dad will be all that's left of the Stilinskis, and Scott will do something stupid and join me at the pearly gates, and then _Allison_ will-"

"You're not dying, Stiles." It's the way she says his name, that oddly pointed inflection on the first half, even though his name only has one syllable, that shuts him up, because she's been brutal, she's been catty, she's been terrifying, but she has never been dishonest when she's said his name in the way only she can.

"Oh," he huffs. "Well - good." He turns up the volume on the mix CD he created for occasions exactly like this one, and _Hungry Like the Wolf_ fills the silence from his rare bout of reticence for the rest of the ride. Probably jumping to 'dying of cancer' is a little extreme, but after watching his mother waste away from the malignant tumor in her brain when he was only eight years old, it's a possibility that lingers at the back of his mind, especially since studies have shown that family history can increase someone's chances of contracting some form of the disease.

They reach their destination and Stiles determinedly does not pout when Erica beats him to the door of the establishment, not allowing him to open it for her. Sure, he knows she can take care of herself - and him - waaay better than he can, but even though he's an ubergeek with no brain-to-mouth filter, his parents did actually raise him to be a gentleman. Erica catches his not-pout and allows him to see her blatant and entirely unapologetic self-satisfaction.

Since they're the only ones in line to order, she turns her grin, which Stiles privately admits is incredibly sexy in a man-eating kind of way, on the poor sap behind the counter. The guy's eyes take on a glazed quality and he's so far gone that even _Stiles_ can smell the hormones coming off of him in waves. It's hilarious and somewhat pathetic how easily his friend can manipulate the male half of the human population. He carefully ignores the fact that if Lydia Martin ever looked at him the way Erica's looking at the pizza dude, Stiles would react exactly the same way - with a lot of incoherent babbling thrown in for good measure.

"Do you have anything... hot?" And... tuning back into _that_ conversation. He stares at Erica in morbid fascination, and then tries to figure out what he missed while his mind wandered.

"Uh- um. We have... tea?" The guy gulps loudly, and Stiles feels like he should give him a manly pat on the back or reassure him that this kind of thing is perfectly normal, but he's not sure anything he says or does will even register with him right now. "And I think we might have coffee?"

And suddenly, she's all business, almost as though she flipped a switch, straightening from where she rested against the counter and slapping her debit card down. "Excellent! Coffee for me, tea for him."

"Ri-right away, ma'am." Pizza dude carries out the transaction and hands over Erica's card and receipt, flushing when their fingers brush against each other.

They watch him stagger away to get their drinks and then choose a booth where they can wait for their order to be filled in comfort. "Erica, honey, I think you broke him - and I'm pretty sure health insurance doesn't cover incapacitation by pheromones."

"Believe me, my pheromones _aren't_ the ones you need to be worried about." That's - kind of concerning, actually, because that implies that there are pheromones that Stiles _should_ be worried about.

While he's mulling that over, pizza dude comes over with their drinks, and Stiles puts his hands around his for a moment, enjoying the heat that radiates off of the mug, before going for the sugar packets. He's not sure why Erica decided he needs tea, but it's reasonable to assume it has at least something to do with the fact that it's lower in caffeine than her coffee, which she apparently drinks black and piping hot. This means that she probably doesn't want him consuming anything that will get him too riled up, but screw that - if he's going to drink hot tea, he needs at least three packets of sweet goodness to make it go down properly.

"Sooo... You wanted to talk about something - something that apparently requires tea and seven miles of distance from other wolfy ears. What's shakin', bacon?"

* * *

Turns out that what's "shakin'" is the fact that Stiles is Derek's mate.

No, really.

Stiles takes in a deep breath, filling his nostrils with the salty-buttery-cheesy-garlicy scent of the small stack of pizzas occupying the backseat and thanking everything holy that Erica had the wisdom to tell him when he was sitting down and didn't have his own life in his hands. They'd had a good ten minutes sitting in that booth, and she'd broken it to him as gently as possible, but he still feels like his world is tilting on its axis, like things look a little different - a little sharper or fuzzier, depending.

She breaks the silence tentatively. "Should I not have told you? I know Derek wanted to wait, but I figured if I let him be the one to decide when to do it, you wouldn't know until you were eighteen and heading off to college, or already knocking boots with somebody else. Besides, it's kind of hard to miss, the way he's all over you these days. Eventually, you were going to have questions."

"Yeah, no, it's fine, 'cause I definitely needed to know. You're not going to be in the doghouse because you spilled the kibble, are you?"

Snorting indelicately at his poor attempt at humor, she tosses her head. "No - not if you don't say anything."

"Yeah, because I'm the pinnacle of self-censorship. You have to know that I'm going to say something at some point, whether I mean to or not." He bites his lip and then raises one hand to rub across his jaw. "Why is he being so obvious, since he doesn't actually want me to know?"

"Because of Jackson. Well," she amends "Jackson and whoever's controlling him. You're his mate, but he hasn't claimed you, and you aren't a wolf, so the only way for him to mark you as his is through leaving his scent on you. You can't smell it, but I know Scott's been getting incredibly cozy with Allison lately - as if her scent wasn't practically coming out of his pours before - and they'll probably go at each other like rabbits until the threat's been dealt with."

"So, he's shoving me into every available flat, stable surface... to _protect_ me?" He's not even going to go near the concept of 'claiming' right now. Until this afternoon, he had no idea that was even something he needed to think about at all. But he will think about it - later. Much, much later.

Something occurs to him as they turn into the parking lot that leads to the temporary den, better known to the people of Beacon Hills as the Subway-Station-That-Wasn't. Erica mentioned that Scott's been with Allison more frequently since Jackson decided to get his snake on, but in the context of explaining Derek's interactions with Stiles. So it sort of follows that she was basically admitting that Scott and Allison are mates, which means that Derek's stubbornness in regard to Allison is exactly that - him being stubborn and refusing to let go of the past. Which - all right. Stiles can understand that. Kate Argent destroyed his entire family when Derek was just a naive teenager, following whichever direction his hormones called him. It makes sense that he would be wary of trusting anyone from that family, but if Allison really is Scott's mate like Erica's suggesting, and Derek's denying her acceptance into the pack - then something needs to be done about that. Stiles is not sure what, exactly, he can do about it, since he's apparently not supposed to know that werewolf mates exist outside of some truly florid literature on the internet, but he knows that he needs to at least _try_.

Mind made up, he parks and hops out of the Jeep, grabbing the pizza boxes from the back. "Could you get the Coke?"

She raises her eyebrows at him, affectionately mocking. "What would you do without me, Stiles?"

What would he do without her?

Well, apparently, he'd continue to live in blissful ignorance, if a certain alpha had anything to say about it. He shuts off that train of thought as they go inside, trading jibes back and forth as they are wont to do whenever they're alone for an extended period of time. By the time they're surrounded by hungry wolf boys, Stiles has been thoroughly distracted by his and Erica's awesomely devious repartee.


	4. Like some child

**Thank you so much, those of you who have reviewed, followed, or favorited this fic, as well as to those of you who simply hit upon this whilst browsing through the (volumes) of Stiles/Derek fics. You guys make this so fun and absolutely worth it.**

**While I have your attention, I want to rec a fic that I love to bits and encourage you all to check it out: ****_Pale Horses _****is a canon-divergent fic by Dark K Sly that follows immediately after the events of 2x10. It brightens my day every time I see an update. **

**And now, back to our regular programming.**

* * *

When Sasha Stilinski was alive, her side of the family would invariably invade the Stilinski home on holidays and birthdays and all manner of days they simply invented reasons for coming over in droves. Some of his earliest memories revolve around sitting at the truly horrible floral-patterned card tables they would set up for the children in the family at mealtimes when they would play board games so that the adults could drink beers and talk about all sorts of uninteresting grown up things. By the end of the visit, paper plates and plastic utensils would cover the card tables, and other, more permanent pieces of furniture besides, and his mother would always shut the door quietly behind the last of her relatives and sigh a deep, resigned sigh before rolling up her sleeves and getting down to the business of setting things to rights.

The last time her side of the family filled their house to the brim, Sasha Stilinski had just been buried six feet under the ground.

His father had been too numb to register the mess, let alone to clean it, so eight-year-old Stiles had been the one to shut the door, turn around, and sigh, a few tears falling down his cheeks, before getting a determined look in his eyes and putting everything back to its usual pristine condition, a silent tribute to his mother.

Now, he's staring at the conspicuously empty room, grease-stained paper plates, empty pizza boxes, and the remnants of the two liters which will soon be flat Coke decorating the two hideous card tables he and Scott dragged out of Stiles' garage a few weeks ago, in an effort to make pack meetings more comfortable and - well. If he's being entirely honest here, more civilized. Stiles sighs and swipes a hand over his face, feeling a strong pang of sympathy for his mother. In an effort to shake off the unbidden memories, he mutters without any real heat, "Yeah, that's great, guys. Make the mess and leave it for the human to clean up - it's not like I have homework or anything else going on in my life!"

"Talking to yourself?"

He whirls around, gasping and trying _not_ to clutch at his chest like the stereotypical damsel in distress. "Gah! Don't _do_ that, or I'm going to start sending my medical bills to your... subway. Unless you have a post office box somewhere. Do you? If you don't, you should probably think about getting one since I don't think anyone's delivered mail to your house in years, and it's not like the hunters would forward it to your new abode if they did. Uh - did you need something? 'Cause I was about to get rid of all of this... what are you doing?"

Pausing with his hands full of some of the pack's detritus, Derek bestows one of his classic 'are you mentally challenged?' expressions upon him and says, "Cleaning."

Stiles boggles and then starts collecting pizza boxes to cover up the fact that he's in the middle of reevaluating his worldview. The universe should really give him some sort of sign whenever Derek's about to something that might possibly be misconstrued as _nice_, because it completely screws with his head, and he's already got a lot of things vying for his attention as it is, though he must admit, this is a perfect distraction from his bout of melancholia. "So... This is nice. You, me. The kids' leftovers. On a Friday night."

"Stiles."

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

The ensuing quiet lasts for about five seconds before Stiles decides _to hell with it_ and says, "Actually, I need to talk to you about something." He waits and then glances up, meeting Derek's expectant gaze. Ah. So that's how it's going to go. He sniffs and scratches at his nose, then goes back to picking things up, trying to figure out how best to go about this, since sensitive topics and Derek Hale don't really seem to mix in the best of circumstances, and in a few short hours, he and two other members of the pack will be attempting yet again to approach the sleeping dragon - err. Jackson. "Yeah, so, I don't know if you've noticed, but Scott's been sporting Eau de Allison a _lot_ lately, even with the Trio of Evil turning up at every corner, trying to keep them apart." With all the trash now gathered and stashed away, it's difficult to know what to do with his hands, and he twitches awkwardly before crossing his arms and leaning in what he hopes looks like a nonchalant manner against the wall.

"Your point being?" When exactly did Derek get close enough that Stiles could smell him? He looks up at his companion and tries to focus on his raised eyebrows, rather than the lips directly in his line of sight.

"My, uh - my point?" He has one, right? There's a point, other than the end of Derek's nose? Yes, somewhere, deep, deep, deep in the recesses of his currently horribly distracted mind, there is a reason for this little tete a tete. "My point! Well, my point is that if the two of them are determined to stay together even with everything that's going on, the odds are that nothing is going to stop them, and Allison would never do anything to hurt Scott, so isn't it time to bring her into the fold a little bit?"

The growl this prompts isn't exactly the most encouraging thing, and it's incredibly odd being able to actually _feel it_, because hey, why wouldn't talking about Scott and Allison's epic love be a good reason for Derek to come _even closer_? Then again, maybe the thought of Allison _Argent_ is enough to set off his wolfy protective urges, which doesn't really bode well for the rest of this currently one-sided conversation.

"Look," he sighs, "Scott's with us, so Allison is with us. You know I'm right about this. And you know what else I'm right about? Allison is your best bet when it comes to catching Jackson unawares. What's it gonna take for you to trust her - or better yet, to trust me and Scott? Why would you go through all the trouble of bringing Scott into your pack if you don't have at least some faith in his judgment?" Granted, Stiles has a whole new perspective on why that is, but he has no desire to land Erica in the world of trouble she'll no doubt find herself thrown into if her alpha knows she let the wolf out of the bag against his orders, and he isn't exactly eager to discuss that particular issue himself right now, especially with Derek crowding him and clouding his already scattered thought process.

Derek's jaw works, and his eyes flash red for a few heart-stopping seconds, but ultimately he grits out, "I'll think about it."

"What, really?" That involved a whole lot less cajoling and out-logicing than Stiles expected.

But then, it can't _really_ be that easy. "Not tonight. But I will think about it."

"Yeah, okay. Great! That's - that's great. Um, so I'm gonna go, but you know where to find me if you need me. My dad's working the night shift - again, so if you do stop by, please feel free to use the front door." Why would Derek possibly need him? He rants at himself mentally the entire time it takes for his werewolf blanket to withdraw and allow him the space he needs to start heading for the door. "Thanks for helping me with the cleanup, by the way."

"I live here."

"Yeah, yeah you do." Stiles stops backing away and rubs at the back of his neck. "Interestingly, so does Isaac, and he hasn't exactly been pitching in." His eyes widen and he glances up at Derek frantically. Why can't he ever keep his mouth _shut_? "Not that he needs to do anything, because I seriously don't mind -"

"I heard you earlier Stiles, and it's not like it would kill the others to help out around here." Thankfully, Derek doesn't sound upset with his pack. In fact, this is the calmest he's sounded in a while. Maybe the two of them should talk about normal things like trash duty more often, if it leads to conversations like this one - not for the astounding mental stimulation, obviously, but it can't hurt for Derek to think about something other than monsters and the people that hunt them every once in awhile.


	5. With bloody feet

**I think I might try and rec a fic or a vid in each update. Today's fic rec is called ****_Blood Moon_****, written by WritingintheCandlelight, which goes AU from the end of episode 2x04. The scenes in this piece are so vivid, the characters so well-written - it almost makes you forget that you're reading fan fiction. So, when you're done here, go check it out. I promise it will be more than worth it.**

* * *

Patience is not something Stiles comes by naturally. Not when it comes to the safety of people he cares about, and as weird as it may seem, Boyd and Derek are now part of that list. Scott's been a fixture on that list since the two of them were little, so worrying about Scott is pretty much his natural state at this point. When they were younger, he worried about his best friend's asthma and his mushroom allergy, along with his rather gullible personality. Now, the worries are far less mundane, and even more difficult to ignore.

He struggles to focus on his history textbook for about an hour after he arrives home. When that doesn't work, he kills a few orcs online, trying to convince himself that the imaginary violence is enough to vent all his pent-up anxiety and stress. Around 2:00 am, he raids the fridge and the cabinet, seriously depleting their store of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and sour cream and onion Lays. He justifies it by deciding to go to the store tomorrow - or, well. Later today. After that, he puts on _Wayne's World_, because it's mindless and something he's watched a hundred times with his dad over the years.

Wayne and Garth are in the middle of prostrating themselves before Alice Cooper when he feels his phone buzzing in his pocket. He swears his heart stops for a few seconds at Scott's cryptic, _Meet us at the door._ Then he's leaping up off the couch and fumbling with the locks - because his lack of coordination has the horrifying habit of manifesting itself right when things start going to pot - and then he's yanking open the front door, taking in the sight of Boyd supporting a bloody and paralyzed Derek Hale. He allows himself to stare and freak out for a fraction of a second before gritting his teeth and reminding himself that unless something goes horribly awry, Derek's body should be completely normal within a few hours.

Stepping aside, he starts barking orders. "Get him up to my room and strip him down to his boxers. Scott - you know where the towels are. Lay some down on my bed and then you can put him down. Which side is worse - his back or his front?"

It's Boyd who says softly, "His back."

Nodding, Stiles decides, "Then lay him on his front. I'll be there as soon as I have the disinfectant and the bandages."

Pack hierarchy is a beautiful thing. Scott is technically Derek's second in command, which means that Boyd instinctively does whatever he wants him to do. While Scott may occasionally think his best friend is crazy, he typically agrees with his decisions, ergo as soon as Stiles is finished speaking, the two of them hasten to put his words into action. This is most excellent, but Stiles doesn't spare any time appreciating it. Instead, he's off to the medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom, gathering supplies to help clean the wounds and stop the bleeding until Derek's body can do what it's supposed to do.

For a while after he enters his bedroom, he is a flurry of activity, refusing to dwell on the terrifying image of the scores which span the entirety of the muscular back, along with the more standard slice along the back of his neck, each of which he gently clenses and then, after muttering a heartfelt apology, disinfects. Derek remains silent throughout the whole process. Whether that stems from his overall desire to appear stoic and strong no matter the situation, or from some sort of prescience regarding exactly how close Stiles is to losing it, Stiles will never know. Eventually the worst is over, and he asks, "Are there any spots on his front?"

"No, it was just his back." There's nothing "just" about the state of Derek's back, but Stiles lets Scott's choice of words go, because in the scheme of things, it really doesn't matter.

"All right," he breathes, wiping his hands off on a moist washcloth. "What happened? I'm assuming because both of you are here and Derek's back looks like Jackson's new favorite scratch post, that something went wrong."

Scott's worried and disgruntled look isn't nearly as concerning as Boyd's overt guilt, and Stiles isn't surprised when it's Boyd who says, "It's my fault. I was the last one in through the window, and didn't land soft enough-"

"Dude," Scott breaks in, "that's not how it happened at all. Jackson was already shifting by the time you got inside."

It's obvious that Boyd's not convinced. "Maybe, but I'm the one he went after. If Derek hadn't pushed me out of the way-"

"Then Jackson still would have gotten away, only it would be you on the bed right now."

Boyd opens his mouth again, but Stiles gets there first. "Look, if you really want to, the two of you can argue about this somewhere else. I want Derek to have the chance to sleep the rest of the paralysis off."

Concerned, Scott stares down at Derek and then says, "I'll just go hang out downstairs until he's feeling better."

"What? Scott, don't you have to be home in like - half an hour?" Thank goodness for the night shift, but it's not a perfect solution for their problem. The ban on Scott-and-Stiles time is still in effect in the McCall household, and so far they've done a fairly decent job of not flagrantly disregarding Mrs. McCall's wishes, sneaking around and scheduling their interactions outside of school to correlate with her work schedule. It will be an enormous relief, for more reasons than one, when they can be out and about or spend their time at home together without constantly keeping an eye on the clock.

"Yeah, but I mean, I can sneak back in through the window. It'll be fine."

He loves his best friend. Truly, he does. But this kind of thing is exactly why Stiles is the one who comes up with all of their plans. "Will it be fine when your mother peeks into your room and sees nothing but air in the space where her child is supposed to be?"

"I can stay." As one, they blink and turn to look at Boyd.

"You sure, man?" When he nods, Scott lets out a huge sigh of relief and claps Boyd on the arm. "Thanks, dude - I owe you one." He turns to Stiles. "Text me if anything happens."

"Sure. Now, get out of here - I'm sick of looking at you." The feeling of victory Stiles experiences at the dopey grin that gets out of Scott is probably disproportionate, but at this point he's too tired and worried about the now comatose figure lying on his bed to care. Once Scott has bid them both goodbye and cast one more worried look at his alpha, he jumps out of the window, disdaining the front entrance. There's another good reason for Allison to be a part of the pack - Scott apparently no longer considers using the door the normal thing to do. He probably would have brought Derek in through his window if he'd thought it was in any way possible.

Stiles shakes his head and then turns to the remaining beta. "I had _Wayne's World_ on downstairs, if you wanted to watch something while we wait."

"What are you gonna do?"

He probably should have expected Boyd to ask him that. Of the three Derek has turned, Boyd has always been the most perceptive, though Erica is certainly brilliant in her own way. Before answering Boyd, Stiles sets about clearing away the supplies and gathering a small pile of bloodied wash cloths to throw in the washing machine, along with Derek's jeans. The shirt is a lost cause, ripped to shreds. "I'm gonna deal with this mess, and then I'll probably come back in here and sit with him." He hoists the gruesome pile into his arms and then asks, "Do you need anything? You're welcome to whatever you want from the kitchen. Mi casa es su casa, and all that."

Those seem to be the magic words, pulling Boyd out of his guilt-induced funk. "I could eat." Stiles totally should have seen that coming. Boyd is a young werewolf built like a freaking brick house: food is always welcome.

With Boyd taken care of, Stiles is free to conceal or dispose of any evidence that might point to the goings-on in the Stilinski home in the wee hours of the morning, or at the very least alert his father to the fact that something is off - something that can't be explained away as the vagaries youth.

It takes far less time than he anticipated, and soon enough, he's back in his room, glancing from the werewolf in his bed to the chair by his desk. Stiles tells himself that the reason he wants to take up the remaining space on the bed is because he's been awake for more twenty hours now, and that's definitely part of it. He feels like one good shove would put him under for the next month, let alone the next few hours. Still, there are other reasons, reasons that ultimately have him plopping himself in his computer chair, because until he actually sorts everything out, he shouldn't do anything that can't be taken back.

Prepared to sit and wait for Derek to wake, Stiles doesn't even realize it when he starts to fall into an exhausted slumber, slumped over and in danger of falling out of his chair.


	6. My blood is singing

**I'm kind of fascinated by the prospect of how this chapter will go over here, as opposed to how it was received on Ao3, because interestingly enough, there is actually a discrepancy between how well things do on this site and others that host fanworks. That being said, I have no doubt there will be a slightly mixed basket of reactions to this. All I'm asking is that people keep things cordial in their reviews.**

**On another note, for today's rec, I'm going to suggest the vid I actually recced in this chapter when I originally posted it on A03. Go to youtube and look for the Stiles/Derek romcom vid, and it should be fairly easy to find. The editing is nearly flawless, the scenes are hilarious, and it's an awesome premise. I'm almost tempted to beg the vidder responsible for creating it if I can't write a fic based off of it.**

* * *

_"Stiles, he's here - take Jathon and run!"_

_Fear grips him even as he scoops up the baby and demands, "What about you?"_

_Even with his heart breaking, Derek is every inch an alpha. "I'll hold him off."_

_There's no time to argue - even Stiles can hear The Master coming now, Jackson inevitably trailing after. Holding back a sob, he kisses his husband one last time and makes a run for the back door to the subway. He manages to make it out into the open, but before he can get into the Jeep, The Master is there, Jackson circling around them and hissing menacingly._

_"Give me the mutt, boy!"_

_Clutching his child - all that is left of Derek, last of the Hales, and far more precious to Stiles than his own life - tighter still, he shakes his head, for once at a loss for words. He knows there's no hope for him and his son to make it out of this alive, but maybe it's better that way - he wouldn't have handled a world without Derek very well._

_"Then you leave me no choice. Kill them both!"_

_As Jackson lunges, scaly maw wide open and tail preparing to strike, Stiles stares down at the baby in his arms, refusing to see anything else as he dies._

Stiles jerks awake and falls rather spectacularly out of his computer desk chair, arms flailing and eyes wide with shock. Still sort of wigged by what he now realizes was a nightmare that proves he spends way too much time mentally dwelling in fantasy worlds, let alone the crazy world that he actually has to deal with on a day to day basis, and that he really should stop eating junk food so late at night, he looks frantically toward his bed, meeting the groggily amused eyes of Derek. As relieved as he feels that Derek's still very much present, and nice as it is to see him exhibiting something other than his usual rotation of negative emotions, it sort of stings that his own misfortune is what it takes to break through that gruff exterior. Grumpy from too little sleep and the last remnants of the horrifying phantasm playing out in his mind's eye, he gripes as he picks himself up off the floor and gets back in the chair, "Laugh it up, buddy. I'm still the one who patched up your little werewolf ass."

They both look toward the bedroom door in response to the choked-off laugh his patent irreverence elicits. Sheepish, which is an odd look from someone with a figure as imposing as Boyd's, he straightens from his sprawl against the doorframe and says, "Um, now that you're awake, I'm gonna head home, if that's alright with you."

"Yes, that's fine. I'll see you and the others later today."

Hesitant, as though he wants to say more, Boyd eventually nods and then heads out the way he came. Why can't the rest of the werewolves learn to be more like Boyd? Is there something offensive about the concept of using the front door when the opportunity presents itself? Stiles sets that thought aside and turns back to Derek. "You should talk to him when you get the chance."

Derek considers him briefly, not exactly open, yet not shutting Stiles out, either. "About?"

"He feels guilty for what happened with Jackson, 'cause he thinks it's his fault you decided to be a hero for someone other than the mouthy research genius you always seem to get stuck with." Stiles can't fight a grin at the dubious look his description earns, but he pushes forward regardless. "Scott and I can tell him he's wrong until we're both blue in the face, but if he hears it from you, he might actually start to believe it. One of the perks of being the big wolf on campus." And there - there is a brief twitch at the corner of Derek's lips, as though he's finding it unusually difficult not to show his amusement. Maybe Stiles should spend more time with him when he's this tired, when his walls aren't reinforced with bitter knowledge and steely resolve.

Finally, Derek mutters, "You're ridiculous, but sometimes you do actually know what you're talking about."

Resisting the urge to crow, Stiles licks his lips, noting almost subconsciously the way that Derek's eyes track the movement, and then clarifies, "So, you'll talk to him?"

"Do you want it in writing?"

Rather than discouraging him, the return of Derek's more irritable tone warms something in his chest. "No, no. If you say you're going to do it, I believe you."

Predictably, Derek's eyebrows rise. "How generous of you."

Leaning back, Stiles spreads his arms and shrugs. "I'm just that awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I'm not going to say 'I told you so.'"

"You realize, of course, that by saying you're not going to, you are actually saying it?"

"Shh, don't ruin the illusion. People have been hiding behind it for hundreds of years. It would be cruel to disabuse them at this point."

Dry as dirt, Derek deadpans, "I'll try not to crush the fragile hopes and dreams of the masses."

It's seriously the greatest thing ever, having Derek actually playing along, because even though he's trying to sound disapproving, there's a lightness in his eyes and his voice that Stiles doesn't think he's ever seen before. He doesn't know what's changed, but he thinks it might have to do with the way Stiles feels - he's completely calm, with an underlying current of relief. There's no pressure, there's no sense of urgency, and it eases the last of the tension between them that stemmed from mutual - he's hesitant to call it mistrust, at this point, but perhaps uncertainty? - and a dearth of time to actually get to know each other and move past it. They've had that time now, and they've worked together, often without acknowledging it, to bring their two packs together. There's just one more piece they need to fit into place, and he's hoping they can resolve that now.

"You are wise and generous in all things, oh fearless leader of mine." He basks in the eyeroll that earns for a moment before sighing and rubbing his hands over his face, because as awesome as this lighter side of Derek may be, there is actually serious business to deal with. "Speaking of being fearless; don't you think it's time to talk to Allison? Maybe things wouldn't have gone perfectly if she'd been there last night - I don't know. But it definitely would have helped, having her there, and maybe you wouldn't have ended up looking like death on my doorstep a few hours ago." He sits forward, his hands clasped and dangling between his legs as he stares at Derek earnestly. "There's only so many times you can get in Jackson's way before things really hit the fan and even your special DNA can't bring you back. And you're not allowed to die, because if you shed this wolfy coil while we're trying to contain Jackson, that would make Scott the alpha of the pack, and I don't know about you, but the thought of my best friend becoming the leader of a group of newly turned teenagers makes me want to change my name and move to Alaska."

Derek tilts his head. "Alaska?"

"Well, it was either that or Texas. You know - somewhere no one would think twice about having a shotgun located at every entrance and exit of the house." Flapping his hands for emphasis, he insists, "But that's not really the point. Will you let Allison be a part of the pack, or not?"

"You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"Have you _met_ me?"

"Yes." The 'unfortunately' remains unspoken but undeniable. Still, Stiles sees right through it, especially when Derek sighs and says, "Contact Allison before the pack meeting today."

Stiles resists the visceral _need_ to pump his fists and shout, 'Yes!' but it's a near thing. "Will do. You won't regret this."

"I hope not." And Stiles knows that it's going to take a while to prove Allison's loyalty - her worth is unquestionable, since anyone who has seen her in a crisis knows she's someone you shouldn't cross - but he also knows that she will rise to the challenge, that she won't let the pack, let _Derek_ down.

It's quiet for a while, the two of them caught up in their own thoughts, and then Stiles glances out the window, taking in the pre-dawn light. "Look, I hate to kick you out like this, but my dad's going to be home from work soon. Are you... feeling better?" In answer, Derek rises smoothly from the bed, though not before laying his head back down on Stiles' pillow, simply breathing in and out. Territorial sourwolf. Stiles almost calls him on it, but decides not to at the last second. One major discussion at a time. Until then... "Yeah, so we should probably take a look at what's under those bandages." Something in his voice must be a little off, because Derek sends him a look, and his nostrils flare. Stiles does his best to seem completely innocent, and though he's not visibly convinced, Derek closes the distance between them and turns to present his back. Working slowly, he pulls the medical tape and gauze away to reveal freshly knitted skin, smooth yet slightly pink. Soon enough, even that will be nothing but a memory. Swallowing, Stiles announces, "Good as new."

Derek turns but doesn't step away, and Stiles tries not to think about the fact that those werewolf senses can hear the rise in his heart rate, the rapidness of his breath. It's entirely unfair that Stiles is an open book, whereas Derek is - actually, no. He definitely looks a bit affected. Derek's eyes keep switching from his neck to his mouth, and then he's leaning forward, and Stiles is holding his breath, and this is it, no turning back - except that it isn't. Instead of going for his lips like he _clearly_ wants to, Derek dips his head and nuzzles at the place where his pulse beats hard and fast, and then he's gone, leaving Stiles standing there with nothing but the blood-encrusted bandages and flashes from the only pleasant part of his nightmare playing out behind his eyes.


	7. I want to pour it out

**Today's rec can be found on Ao3 under the Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski tag. It's written by JenNova and it is an episode tag to 2x12, "The Master Plan" called ****_Broken_****. It's a beautiful piece that shows the more vulnerable parts of Derek, as well as the strength that people tend to forget exists in Stiles. I'd post the link here, but this site always deletes external links, so hopefully you'll be able to find it easily enough on your own.**

**In other business, to the guest who reviewed and chose to remain nameless, your message is actually discussed somewhat in this chapter, but we can certainly talk about it a bit here. I'm sure that all of us have had dreams based off of the sci-fi and fantasy shows, novels, etc that we enjoy from time to time, and that is what happened to Stiles in chapter six.**

* * *

After wrapping the bandages in paper towels and several grocery bags, Stiles carries the illicit waste to the large green trash can out in the garage. Thankfully, he's the one who always handles trash duty, along with the other assorted household tasks, so it's entirely possible his dad will never even have a chance to see it. Maybe he's being overly cautious, but right now, the best protection he can provide for his dad is plausible deniability, and if he has to explain the existence of the bandages which were clearly used for some extensive bleeding, that protection will be that much weaker. Stiles can't let that happen, can't risk his dad's life by not erring on the side of caution.

That done, he switches the load with Derek's jeans into the drier and throws all the bloody towels that had lain between Derek and his sheets into the washing machine. If asked about his decision to do laundry in the early hours of the morning, he'll claim he was up all night because of taking too much Adderall, and wanted to do something productive. Unfortunately, the lie would be all too believable, because it's happened more times than he typically likes to admit.

It's when he steps wearily into the steady stream of the shower that the events of the last few hours truly hit him, and he finally has the chance to struggle through the memory of Derek's back and neck, torn wide open and overflowing with thick crimson. His vision whites out, and he realizes that he's forgotten to breathe. Gasping for air, he tries to force the image out of his head, to remember that Derek is fine, that he'll see him later today. He hasn't felt like this in a long, long time - not since the first few months after his mother's death, when the panic attacks were frequent and debilitating. There have been moments where he thought he might lose someone recently, yet he's pushed through them with stubborn cheerfulness and liberal amounts of sarcasm. What makes this time so different?

He turns the knob for hot water as far to the right as he can stand and tries to focus on the pain of the scalding fluid hitting his skin, but even with the water that bores into his sensitive flesh, turning it from pale to pink in seconds, Stiles cannot shut off his thoughts.

He thinks about dark stubble against tanned skin, about a warm, musky scent enveloping him, about sitting in the pizzeria he's loved ever since he can remember and learning that he's become even more wrapped up in werewolves - and one in particular - than he ever thought possible. He thinks about his nightmare, remembers thinking that part of Derek (a part that _doesn't even exist_) mattered more than his own life. He thinks about the fact that he's been fooling himself for weeks, telling himself that he hasn't noticed the heat between the two of them, hasn't recognized the feeling he gets any time Derek comes nearer.

When the water begins to cool of its own volition, he drags himself out of the shower and gingerly pats his slightly abused body down. As he trudges back to his room, he hears his dad's cruiser coming up the driveway, and he debates with himself over whether or not to go say 'hi.' Eventually, he decides against it. There's no guarantee he would be able to act anywhere near his usual self, and he and his dad are still on shaky ground with each other right now. Neither of them are ready for more of his obvious lies and half-truths. He'll wait until they've both had enough sleep.

It's the best decision he's made in the last twenty-four hours, because as soon as his head hits the pillow, he's dead to the world.

...

When he wakes, it's already past noon, and there's a hollowness in his stomach that reminds him he cannot actually sustain himself on junk food and happy thoughts. He makes a sandwich with the last of the smoked turkey and swiss, then pens a short note in the off chance that his dad emerges from his cave some time in the next hour. That done, he scoops up his keys and wallet from the kitchen table and heads out to his Jeep.

Even though nothing feels resolved, there's something soothing about carrying out his Saturday grocery run. With all the changes in his life recently, it's nice to have something familiar, something he can navigate with his eyes closed. While he's there, his eyes fall on a display of baked goods, and he grins when he sees the cookies decorated with wolves and little moons, in honor of the latest movie in the _Twilight Saga_. Much as he thinks the films are ridiculous (to say nothing of the novels, and yes, he did, at one point, read them, largely because he heard Lydia mocking them one day and wanted to know if they were really as terrible as she claimed - and they were), he has no qualms about benefitting from all of the hype generated for them by the media. He snags a few boxes to take with him to the meeting in a few hours, already anticipating the scowls their presence will earn. He knows they'll still get eaten.

He makes it a point to buy reduced fat cheese and two percent milk, his mind going back to his dad's latest test results. They can both live with a little less flavor if it means his dad will still be around to grumble about it. Mind made up, he decides to try to cook even more of their meals at home, because if he can put the food on the table, he can keep his dad from ordering fries that are more grease than potato, which can only be a good thing.

It's on the frozen section that he runs into a bit of a snag, staring longingly at the gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. But if his dad has to go without the good stuff when he's at home, then Stiles will, too. He grits his teeth and selects chocolate chip frozen yogurt, instead. How bad can it be, right?

Checking out takes forever, and the guy sacking everything keeps sending him odd looks. Stiles, mature, responsible young adult that he is, resolutely ignores him.

He makes the mistake of pressing "play," on his stereo as soon as he's comfortably situated in his Jeep, forgetting which CD he put in last, and all the things he's been avoiding since he woke up this afternoon come back when _Howl_ starts up. It's classic irony that the CD he mixed in order to drive the rest of the pack crazy is now doing the same for him. For once, it would be nice if his own sense of humor _didn't_ come back to bite him in the - and cutting _that_ thought off as soon as possible. So not what he needs right now.

Searching for something safe, he tries to picture the face his father is going to make when he realizes they're going to be eating vegetarian lasagna from now on. That carries him through the rest of the journey home, and through the first few trips from the Jeep to the kitchen, his hands full of grocery bags. Then his dad is there, and the haggard look on his face isn't nearly as amusing as the one Stiles has been imagining for the last fifteen minutes.

Sobering, he greets him with a quiet, "Hey, dad."

That gets an even softer, "Son," and a nod in return.

"There's only a few bags left - why don't you start putting things away and I'll be back to finish up in a minute?" That's how they've done it since Stiles took over grocery shopping for the two of them, but with the way things have been ever since that stupid restraining order was filed, it's like everything about their lives that revolves around each other has been thrown off-kilter.

Still, his dad tells him "Sure," and sets about putting the cold things in their proper homes in the fridge, so Stiles makes an effort to shake his uncertainty off.

"Great, thanks." And he _isn't_ running from the awkward vibes like a coward. He's simply getting the last of the groceries. _How is it that you're such sucky liar, Stilinski? Even to yourself?_

When he heads inside after locking the Jeep, things are still awkward, but they have a rhythm for such things, and it allows them to carry out their various tasks without tripping all over each other. It's when words come into play that their newly lacking equilibrium makes itself known like a week-old tuna casserole (Stiles has made that only once, and swore to never inflict that horror on the two of them ever again).

"So, um. I'm gonna do my homework and then put a lasagna together. If I set the timer on it, do you think you could remember to take the aluminum foil off and put it back in for another thirty minutes? There's something I need to take care of later, but I should be back in time for dinner." His dad is a brilliant sheriff, and an awesome parent, but matters of the kitchen evade him. Stiles has no idea how they survived on his version of cooking (frozen dinners and take-out) until Stiles decided to learn when he was twelve. That was actually when his - admittedly obsessive - love of research first started. He spent his entire summer break watching the Food Network, when he wasn't hanging out with Scott or bugging his dad at the precinct. While he will never be an Emeril or a Guy, he thinks he makes a pretty decent cook, all things considered.

"I think I can handle that. What is it you need to take care of?" His dad has that look all good parents have, the one that says he knows Stiles is purposely being cagey, but he won't call him out on it unless he thinks it's serious. Unfortunately, if his dad had any idea how truly serious the meeting is going to be, wolf cookies aside, he would definitely be calling him on it, and possibly grounding him for life.

"I'm meeting with a group of kids I have to do a project with in Chemistry. We're just going to be assigning duties for now, I think." As terrible as his acting skills are, he tends to manage well enough with lies that are mostly truth, and since the majority of the pack _does_ have Chemistry together, and capturing Jackson could technically be considered a project, he thinks he does a fairly good job of keeping a straight face.

His dad considers him for a moment, and then a tightness neither of them had registered before loosens in his face. "Well, good. I'm glad to hear that you and your friends aren't putting this off until the last minute." Stiles thinks that's going to be the end of it, right up until he hears, "Scott wouldn't be part of this group of kids, would he?"

Shoot. "Um, well actually-"

"Stiles. It's fine." And the beautiful thing is that his dad actually means it, even though he knows Mrs. McCall told him not to let their sons go against her wishes.

His breath comes out in one great huff and his shoulders slump, every part of him singing relief. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I think you've punished yourself for what happened far more than my grounding you ever could." His dad's eyes make the obvious path over the bags under his eyes, the exhaustion that seeps from his skin, and Stiles sniffs extra hard, his eyes unexpectedly moist and his nose oddly congested. When the arms that have held and protected him since he was little more than a slight softening in his mother's belly open in invitation, he falls into them, gasping and clutching at the back of his dad's shirt.

He may be living in a world where he has to make life and death decisions, where he has to hide things in order to keep his dad safe. He may be more than slightly responsible for the emotional stability of a group of students who are more or less his own age. He may, in fact, be falling in love - real love, with someone who might, possibly, feel every bit as strongly as he does. But for all that, he's still only on the cusp of manhood, and he needs his dad's love and support as much, if not more than, he always has.

He sort of forgot until this moment that he's always had it, and that he always will.

He won't forget it again.


	8. Drag my teeth across your chest

**The fic rec for today is actually a Scott/Isaac fic called ****_Entrusted_****, written by the lovely and talented missmishka. It's a slightly AU take on "Raving" written from Isaac's perspective, and it's so compelling and just - go read it and give it some love, yeah?**

* * *

_"Stiles?"_ The world isn't currently ending, and he's not playing the messenger for Beacon Hills' star-crossed lovers right now, so he can see how Allison might be a little confused about hearing from him late into Saturday afternoon.

He adjusts his hold on his cell as he sets the timer on the oven and then says, "So, you know how people say 'we have cookies,' when they try to lure you to the dark side?"

_"Yeah?"_

"Well, we actually do have cookies, and if you wouldn't mind joining us, we have some rather important business to discuss - including, of course, whether or not you're cool enough to eat our cookies." He chances a glance at his dad, who has a mug of coffee in one hand and a case file in the other, far too engrossed in the details to care about what his son is discussing. Still, it can't hurt to keep things a little vague.

_"Wait - does that mean that Derek - please tell me that he's okay with this."_ Okay, so, given their history of rather impulsive behavior, it's not entirely unlikely that Stiles and Scott would try to spring Allison on the rest of the pack, but he still feels as though he should be bothered by the utter lack of faith that question demonstrates.

He makes a disgruntled noise as he collects the cookies he may or may not be attempting to bribe Allison with, along with the jacket he has carefully bundled around Derek's freshly laundered jeans, and makes for the door. He'll be a little cold in his way to the car, but he can slip the jacket on after he gets in, and it'll be worth it if it leaves his dad none-the-wiser. "You wound me. But yes, he's given the idea his seal of approval." Juggling as he reaches the door, he waits for Allison to cave into the inevitable. Her friendship with Jackson from before he took up slithering as an extracurricular, combined with the sense of responsibility she feels because of her abilities and the nature of her relationship with Scott, makes her agreement a foregone conclusion. That won't stop her from experiencing guilt for what she probably perceives as a betrayal of her family.

It takes her most of the time that Stiles spends getting situated in the Jeep. _"I won't be going in unarmed, Stiles. They're going to have to be okay with that."_

That he can work with. "The way I see it, they're always packing. Why should you have to feel left out?"

The tinny sound of her resigned sigh comes through the speaker of his phone. _"When do I need to be there?"_

"I'm about to head that way now."

_"Alright. I guess I'll see you soon."_

"Sure." About to hang up, he says, "Oh, and Allison?"

_"Yeah?"_

"Don't let any of them push you around. You have just as much of a right to be there as the rest of us do."

He can hear the smile in her voice. _"Thanks, Stiles."_

That done, he drops his phone into the passenger seat and starts the ignition. This time when his stereo comes to life, he grins and turns up the volume. He's feeling much steadier after making peace with his dad, and he's ready to ruffle some fur.

He might even be able to provoke Derek into shoving him into a wall _before_ the rest of the pack gets there.

…

Unfortunately, there's no luck on the shoving front. Derek is already deep in discussion with Boyd when Stiles arrives. It's good though, that Derek is following through, making an effort to connect with, and reassure his pack. Even better than that is the fact that his newest beta actually seems to be listening. That's something _huge_, because Boyd is quite arguably the most immovable person Stiles has ever met - and that includes Derek. When Boyd believes in something, he tends to dig his heels in way, way down deep, and nothing short of supernatural strength can pull him back from whatever it happens to be.

Not wanting to intrude, Stiles simply nods and smiles at them when they turn his way. He drapes the jeans over the fold-out chair Derek typically sits in during pack meetings and then divides the cookies between both of the card tables equally, after which he wonders if he shouldn't do it differently. If he's right, he'll wind up sitting with Scott and Allison for the sake of moral support, which means there'll be a table with more humans than werewolves, and as astonishing as his teenage metabolism is, he and Allison still cannot put away as much food as the rest of the pack.

He's still staring pensively between the two tables when Erica and Isaac stroll in. "Heard you had kind of a late night, Stiles." Behind the double entendre and the predatory gleam in Erica's eyes when she catches sight of Derek's jeans, and no doubt the scent of Stiles and his laundry detergent all over them, he can hear the concern she's trying to conceal. It's made doubly evident by the way she cannot prevent herself from giving Derek a once-over. He gets it. They all know Derek is perfectly fine - a fact which she can confirm even better than Stiles, given her enhanced senses - but it's not that easy. They're still going to worry. They're still going to check every few moments that Derek is still there and in once piece. It's what being pack - what being _family_ - means.

"Yeah, but you know, sleep is overrated."

"I don't know about that - you're looking a little worse for wear. Don't you know you're not supposed to burn the candle at both ends?" And seriously? Is everyone out to tell him how terrible he looks right now? Well, not everyone, but Erica and his dad. If this keeps up, he's going to develop a complex. Although - it is nice to know that they've noticed. Stiles would be lying if he said that the first few weeks after Scott met Allison hadn't thrown him for a loop. For so long, Scott and his dad had been his entire world, and to have one of them completely absorbed in another person had been a harsh adjustment. Now, he has a whole pack of people to worry about and to worry about him in return, and it's so much more than he ever expected.

Still, he laughs it off, ignoring for now the fact that he can't actually convince her of anything her senses won't confirm. "Pulling all-nighters is a time honored teenage tradition. Besides, it's nothing a little caffeine won't fix."

She frowns, about to say something further, and then her entire body, save her nose, goes still. Stiles feels his heart rate rise in response. Could Jackson's master finally have decided to take out the pack? Or could it be the Argent's? It's as he's truly beginning to panic that an Argent strides into view, nifty bag of Hunter tricks slung over one shoulder. He sighs expansively, then wants to smack himself. Derek wouldn't continue talking to Boyd if a threat came anywhere near the den.

He steps forward to greet their newest pack member. "Glad you could make it! Pull up a chair and get comfortable - we have only the best accommodations here at Werewolf HQ."

She shoots Erica a slightly wary look and then refocuses on Stiles, trying to cover up any apprehension with a smile. "Does that include refreshments? Because I distinctly remember you promising me cookies over the phone."

"Yeah, of course. Prepare to be refreshed." Stiles goes to open one of the boxes, only to find himself stymied by the label sealing it. He struggles to find a good angle or a slightly loose end.

"Allow me." His heart leaps into his throat and he whirls, facing Isaac, who calmly raises his eyebrows and takes the box, using single claw to slice through the seal. He opens the box and takes a cookie, then hands the rest back, snorting at the decorative design.

Stiles stares at him for a moment, eyes still widened in shock. Blinking, he recovers and says, "A little warning next time? A guy's heart can only take so much. Where did you even come from - the rafters? Wait - there are no rafters. Did you materialize out of thin air? Because that's an ability I definitely wasn't aware of."

He might perceive Isaac's expression as contrite, but for the amusement lurking at the corners of his lips and the poorly concealed laughter in his eyes. "I'm sorry, mo-man. Did I scare you?"

Narrowing his eyes, Stiles huffs, "Don't think I didn't catch that little slip of the tongue, buddy. And yes, you very successfully knocked off another year of my life. Congratulations. You can terrify humans. You're a real werewolf now." In answer, Isaac simply bites into his pilfered treat and walks over to stand by Erica, distracting her from the not-glare she'd been sending Allison's way. Shaking his head, Stiles holds the now accessible offering out to Allison and they shared a bonding moment over the antics of teenage werewolves. "So, where's your lesser half?"

She shrugs, accepting her own sugar-laden snack. "I don't know. I haven't heard from him since yesterday."

"He _should_ have been studying, but he was probably sleeping last night off, instead. Not that I blame him."

"What happened last night?" Him and his big mouth.

He holds up his hands in a placating motion. "He's fine. Things with Jackson got a little out of hand, but Scott wasn't hurt."

It's pretty obvious she doesn't believe him. Thankfully, Scott walks in a moment later, his steps a little hurried. "Hey, I didn't know you'd be here. What's wrong?"

Her entire body relaxes, and she moves toward Scott in a way that makes it seem like her body isn't really her own anymore. "Nothing - I'm fine. Stiles was just about to tell me what happened last night."

Scott shoots him a nervous look and then takes both of Allison's hands in his. Stiles steps away, content to let them have their own little world until the meeting starts.

…

It's clear from the way that Erica takes a seat on the side of Allison that Scott hasn't plastered himself to, that she's going to be a brat about this. She may understand the importance of having Allison in the pack, but until now, she's been the only female present, and now that there's another girl, she probably feels like her position in the pack is being threatened. At some point, Stiles will probably need to take her aside and assure her that she's still top banana around these parts, since Allison has no interest in the pack's pecking order - she just wants to protect the people she cares about, and to be able to fight alongside Scott.

For now, he simply scoots his chair close to Erica's and throws his arm over her shoulders, hoping to remind her to play nice. The look she sends him states clearly that she knows exactly what he's doing - which is fine, since it's not like he's trying for subtlety. But maybe he should be, given the pair of eyes he can feel boring into the back of his head now. He pushes down the need to remove his arm. If Derek doesn't like it, he should be the one bringing Erica to heel. Stiles just wants to keep the peace.

Eventually, they get down to business, and everyone focuses most of their attention on the the latest plan to capture Jackson and lure his master out into the open.

Isaac wants to isolate him after a lacrosse game and hold him somewhere. Boyd and Scott both hasten to tell him exactly how terrible that idea is, the events of last night fresh in their memories.

Allison wants to shoot him full of a sedative - a plan which Scott hops on almost immediately, to no one's surprise. When the question of where the sedative will come from is brought up, Scott volunteers to ask Dr. Deaton to supply them with enough to take down a small elephant, and take the cost out of his next paycheck. Considering how much medication costs these days, it'll probably be more like his next twenty paychecks and his firstborn, but Stiles holds his tongue. If he knows Dr. Deaton at all - and he does, because he and his dad have rescued enough turtles and wounded strays in his lifetime, and they have to take them to _someone_ who knows what he's doing - the man won't take a dime from Scott, no matter what his young employee says.

Then, there's the matter of where to keep Jackson that not even his freakishly strong snake suit would be able to breach. It sucks beyond the telling that the hunters have taken to creeping around the Hale house, which would be the perfect place, what with the underground chamber of doom. It's Erica who suggests the old bomb shelter some of the more eccentric city council members commissioned back in the sixties.

The real question, though, is how to lead whoever's controlling Jackson to the bomb shelter without alerting law enforcement. If Allison can administer the sedative while Jackson is already sleeping, that will leave them a window of about six to eight hours to accomplish their task before the Whittemores check on their son the next morning. There's no guarantee that the master will even realize his precious assassin is even missing until it's reported to the local media, unless there's something about the connection between kanima and master that they don't yet understand.

Stiles reminds everyone of the incident in the library, and how Jackson started to shift without provocation, and without contacting anyone outside. They decide to take a stab at their tentative plan tomorrow night, and to take the rest of the evening off to rest and take care of other things - namely schoolwork, which they've all allowed to slide in light of recent events.

Everyone begins to disperse when the meeting draws to a close. Stiles rises to dispose of the thoroughly demolished cookie boxes, and then he feels an unnatural heat come up behind him. He stills and then turns around to face Derek. "You're back to creeping. Guess you're feeling one hundred percent again." Saying nothing, Derek steps even closer, until Stiles is pinned between him and the card table. "Yeah, okay. Are we ever going to progress past the sniffing and the pinning, and get to the fun part?"

Derek raises an eyebrow. "The fun part being...?"

"I forget sometimes that you're more of a hands-on kind of guy. Although," Stiles glances at the complete lack of space between them, "I'm not sure how. This," he brings his hands up to curl into the fabric of Derek's shirt, "is the fun part."

Derek is surprisingly passive for their first kiss. Though, that could have more to do with the fact that Stiles caught him off guard - even with the fair amount of warning given beforehand. It's after Stiles has moved back a fraction of an inch, trying to gage the alpha's reaction, that Derek takes his lips and basically _possesses_ them, biting and sucking and licking them until they're swollen and very much not Stiles' anymore.

When he finally lets him go, Stiles stumbles, making Derek ask, "Are you alright to drive?"

"Huh?"

Closing his eyes, Derek holds out his hand. "Give me your keys."

It's a testament to how out of it he is that Stiles actually complies without a single word of complaint.


	9. Now there's no holding back

**The fic rec for today is one I'm really excited about. It's called ****_DILF_**** (Yeah, it totally stands for what you think it stands for, but this fic is so much more than a PWP, although there is a steamy scene at the end, so please don't read it unless you're over 18.) and written by twentysomething. I just finished reading it, and seriously, I could not stop. It was so, so awesome. Here's the summary the author wrote: "Today is Scott's first day of kindergarten and Derek is terrified."**

**Here is the description I wrote for it when I bookmarked it on Ao3: "In which Derek's life is like a Lifetime movie, but in a good way. Make some hot chocolate and tea, grab a fuzzy blanket, and settle in for an awesome, completely heart-warming read." **

**On to more fic-related matters, this is the obligatory Kate-Argent-Happened scene. It's kind of like ripping off a Band-Aide.**

**Some of you may have read the "accidental chapter" that showed up yesterday. I've fixed the problem, and chapter eight really is chapter eight now. That "accidental chapter" was a totally separate AU that I wrote right after the season two finale wrap-up thing they did on Monday night (Where they told us absolutely Nothing of Substance, but Tyler Hoechlen and Dylan O'Brien were pretty, so I guess that's okay?).**

* * *

The drive to the Stilinski household is more than halfway over before his head clears enough for Stiles to sense the tension in the air. He shoots his companion a curious glance and takes in the heaviness in his shoulders, the grim set of his lips. It definitely serves to bring Stiles back down to Earth, and he starts to feel the first twinges of anxiety. Surely Derek's only acting this way because of the unresolved situation with Jackson and his master - right? It couldn't possibly be anything Stiles-shaped. That would be ridiculous. The two of them are fine - more than fine, if their lip-locking session from earlier is anything to go by. Derek practically tried to suck Stiles' soul out out his _mouth_ (in a non-Dementorish, totally hot kind of way).

So when Derek pulls over one block away from his home address and turns to face him, face regretful yet firm, Stiles very carefully _does not freak out_. He simply stares back at Derek expectantly and wills the coming conversation to go in his favor.

The resigned sigh Derek opens with is not encouraging at all. Nor are the words that follow. "We need to talk about what just happened."

"Do you mean the awesome kissing? Because it was. And we did, and that totally just happened. To us." So what if Stiles has a habit of rambling in order to put off bad news? If his runaway mouth happens to earn him a few extra minutes of denial, it's totally worth the irritation it may or may not cause the other parties involved.

"Yes, Stiles, I mean the kissing. That can't happen again."

Um. What? Seriously, just - no. Heck no. "Excuse me?" It's very nearly amusing, the startled look Derek sends him, as though he never suspected Stiles could be capable of speaking in such a dark tone. Guess they're both in for some unpleasant surprises for the next little while.

Derek actually looks uncomfortable now. Well - good. He freaking _should be_. "Look, I'm not saying that it will never happen again, there's just some things that you need to be aware of before you make any kind of commitment."

"'Some things' - you know what? Screw you, Derek. Are you constitutionally incapable of letting yourself be happy for more than five seconds? Don't answer that. You seem to be suffering under the misapprehension that I don't know what I'm doing. I have news for you - I am, in fact, capable of taking care of myself and making my own decisions about what I want, and what I'm ready for, thank you very much. And just so you know, I know that thing that you think I don't know about. Were you planning on waiting until I was old and grey before admitting that I'm your mate? What - it's fine for you to practically piss all over me, but actually _kissing_ me is beyond the pale? Hell, Derek - I'm not asking you to get me to the church on time. I'm not even asking you if I can tell my dad. I just want some sort of sign that this isn't one huge inconvenience for you. Is that _really_ too much? Because if it is - well. Obviously I'll still help the pack with Jackson, and you know where to find me if you all need me for anything else, but. I don't think it's right for you to expect me to stick around and wait for you to decide you want me." He's panting by the time he's finished, the anger making him hot and itchy all over. In the back of his mind, he sends a heartfelt apology to Erica, and promises to make it up to her later. Still, he has a feeling she's going to understand; he wouldn't throw her under the bus unless the situation was seriously dire. "Well? Say something."

It's entirely too obvious that Derek is out of his depth right now. Truth be told, so is Stiles, but at least he's making an effort. Staring somewhere over Stiles' shoulder, Derek asks, "How long have you known?"

The bleakness in Derek's voice steals most of the fury that Stiles has been using in order to actually face this conversation. He slumps back against the passenger seat and gazes tiredly out the window. "Officially? About a day." Which is is as good as waving a flag saying 'Erica did it!' in Derek's face, because who else would have had the gall and the time to do it? "Unofficially, though? I've known something was up for a few weeks. You haven't exactly been doing the best job of hiding it, if that's what you were trying to do. Which, I mean - I get that a lot of it has to do with your instincts and all, but seriously, you can't be that handsy with someone and not think they're going to call you on it eventually."

Instead of acknowledging his excellent point, Derek takes both of Stiles' wrists in his hands and coaxes him to look him straight in the eyes. "You're not inconvenient. Mouthy and opinionated and completely lacking in any sort of self-preservation instinct? Absolutely. But you're not inconvenient. I'm sorry if I made you feel that way."

Stiles huffs, shaking his head at his stupid bleeding heart. "I really shouldn't forgive you this easily. If Scott ever pulled something like this with me - well, no, I guess I'd forgive him just as easily. I'm just not that good at staying mad at the people I care about. It's kind of a thing." He shrugs, slightly frustrated with himself, yet totally aware it's a shortcoming he's always had, and always will. There are worse faults in the world. "But seriously - from now on, you don't get to just arbitrarily decide what I can and can't handle, alpha or not. I help you make decisions that could be the difference between someone living and dying on an almost day to day basis. You should be able to trust me with this, too."

"I do trust you." Even without wolfy senses, Stiles can tell that he's being nothing but sincere. They've come a long way since those terrifying hours in the Beacon Hills High School's pool. Still, there's something in the way that the words are spoken, something that prickles at his brain-

"It's you! You don't trust yourself with me." He hesitates and then plows forward, because what else can he do? "Is this in any way at all related to a certain dead hunter?" By the sudden increase in pressure on his wrists, he can tell he's hit the mark. "Because that's not something you need to worry about, like - at all. You're nothing like her." The doubt in Derek's eyes hurts something deep in his chest, and all he wants to do is make it _go away_ - and then go and stomp and spit on Kate Argent's grave, because she deserves it and so much more for what she did. He hates that she's still hovering between the two of them like a spector, hates that some part of her probably always will. He carefully breaks the hold Derek has on him and then threads their fingers together instead, squeezing firmly as he emphasizes, _"You're not._ Okay?" At Derek's tentative nod, Stiles sighs softly. "Okay."

They sit there quietly for a few minutes, taking in the sense of peace that comes from getting everything out in the air. Eventually, though, Derek leans forward and presses a chaste kiss, entirely unlike the two they've shared before, to Stiles' waiting lips, and then whispers, "Thank you," against them.

"For what? Out-stubborning your little werewolf ass, or caving like a soft, squishy thing when you saw the error of your ways?"

He can feel the little puffs of Derek's laughter on his mouth and part of his chin, and it makes him grin, especially when Derek admits, "Both." It's just his luck that the alarm he set on his cell goes off then, letting him know that he has fifteen minutes before the lasagna is done. Derek's sigh is a gust of warm air on his face, and then he asks, "Do you need me to go?"

Reluctantly, Stiles pulls away. "Yeah, actually, I kind of do, or my dad'll probably start on the lasagna without me - and I kind of need to be there to make sure he doesn't spit it right back out." At Derek's blank look, he elaborates, "I'm instituting vegetarianism in the Stilinski household, at least until my dad's next doctor's visit. His test results didn't look too hot this last time - or most of the others in the last few years, so. You know. I have to do what I can, while I can."

Instead of looking at him like he's crazy, there's a deep understanding in Derek's gaze, and Stiles knows that if Derek could have done something like that for any one of his family, he would have, no two ways about it. Wanting to end their evening together on a positive note, Stiles leans in for one more kiss, and then he separates from Derek entirely, moving to undo his seatbelt and unlock the doors.

"All right, you. Out. We can talk about things later - or we could just kiss some more. I'd be really happy with that."

Derek rolls his eyes, the response entirely devoid of the ire that typically accompanies it, and removes his own seatbelt. "I'm sure we can find a way to talk _and_ kiss at some point in the near future. The two concepts aren't exactly mutually exclusive."

"Look at you, being all logical." He takes that moment to open the passenger side door and hop out. Let it never be said that he's not an opportunist.

By the time he reaches the other side of the Jeep, Derek is already gone. Stiles estimates that there is a ninety-nine percent chance he will find a werewolf loitering in his room after dinner.

He's incredibly okay with that.


	10. Be careful of the curse

**Today's fic rec is called ****_Sense of Right_****, written by MintSauce. Although I'm actually a firm believer that Stiles is exactly what he needs to be as a human, there's something incredibly compelling about the way MintSauce writes Stiles as a werewolf with a pack that he found when he fled from Beacon Hills as a teenager.**

* * *

It's probably ridiculous, but some part of Stiles expects his dad to know that he's spent the last thirty minutes or so of his so-far short life kissing and cajoling his way into a relationship with one Derek Hale within seconds of him walking through the front door. Scratch that - it _is_ ridiculous. Still, he pulls down the visor and checks himself in the mirror. His cheeks are a little flushed, and his lips are slightly redder than normal, but all in all, he doesn't think it looks too terribly obvious. There's no tattoo on his forehead declaring, 'Derek Hale was here,' or anything, so that's good, at least.

Flipping the visor back into place, he takes a deep breath and squashes down the urge to grin like a loon, then forces himself to vacate his darling Jeep and face the music. With any luck, it'll be something along the lines of Madness' _Our House_ and not Winger's _Seventeen_, or worse, Warrant's _Cherry Pie_. Shuddering, he feels the need to smile vanish into the ether. That's definitely one discussion he never wants to have with his dad.

By the time he's through the front door and heading into the kitchen, his dad has realized Stiles is home and started getting paper towels and silverware on the table. "Hey, dad."

Glancing up from where he'd been placing a fork on a paper towel - because buying paper napkins is overrated, especially when on a budget, and it's not like they have anyone to impress, anyway - his dad replies, "Hey. How's that project shaping up?"

Right. The 'project'. The most recent lie in a series of lies he's been feeding his dad for months. With all the werewolf business and then the kissing and the arguing, his latest alibi had completely slipped his mind. _Gotta be more on top of things, Stilinski. No slip-ups allowed._ "Well, if everyone does what they're supposed to, it should be fine." He continues on into the kitchen and is hit by a wall of Italian spices, tomatoes, and melted cheese. His mouth waters reflexively, which he takes as a good sign. Food typically tastes as good as it smells, right? Maybe they won't even miss the beef.

He fritters around, placing oven mits on the counter and arranging and then rearranging the hot pads until the timer finally goes off. Shutting the heat off with a _snick_, he opens the oven and brings out the gooey mass, careful to avoid the edges of the oven door. He's had a few run-ins with that thing over the years, and they've never been pretty. When he first started out as the family cheff, his dad had insisted on being the one to actually put things in and pull them back out of the oven, not wanting his son's penchant for particularly clumsy moments to end in a trip to the emergency room. Eventually, he started trusting Stiles to handle it on his own, and for the most part, things went fine, but Stiles simply wouldn't be himself if he didn't meet his monthly quota of household accidents.

Setting the lasagna down on the hot pads, he goes in search of a spatula and sees his dad already has one out, along with two plates. He plucks the items out of his dad's hands and gets to work, scooping out two Stilinski-sized portions and presenting one of them for his dad to consider his very own. _Here goes nothing._

For the first few bites, his dad doesn't notice anything different, but that has more to do with the fact that he can't be bothered to wait until the lasagna is cool enough for anything like flavor to actually register. Then, he gives his plate an odd look which he transfers to his son. "What did you do?"

"Aside from slave away in the kitchen for an hour?"

His dad doesn't buy that for a minute - not that Stiles was expecting him to. "Don't even try to pull that. If I step anywhere near the fridge, you beat me off with a spatula. What _is_ this?"

Stiles sets down his fork and steeps his fingers. "Well, dad, this is what people commonly refer to as lasagna. It has tomatoes, noodles, a delicious combination of cheeses, some vegetables, spices, and lots and lots of love."

"Uh-huh. And I suppose that 'love' is taking the place of the meat you neglected to mention?"

"It's more like the motivation, actually." He waits for his dad to respond and then sighs, picking his fork back up and twiddling with it. "Do you completely hate it? 'Cause I tried to get it to taste as close to normal as possible, but -"

"But it's kind of hard to make eggplant taste like beef?" When Stiles nods, his dad takes pity on him. "No, I don't hate it. A little warning probably would have been nice, but I don't hate it."

"Oh - awesome! Then you should wait until you see what I have planned for tomorrow night. There's this recipe for a vegetarian version of meatloaf - I know, right? And so I was thinking..." The rest of dinner passes the way dinners in their family usually do, with Stiles talking his dad's ears off and his dad patiently enduring (reveling) in the incessant chatter, so much like his late wife's that it's bittersweet.

When they've both polished off a second plate of lasagna and finished cleaning the detritus of their meal, Stiles hears his dad say, "Just so you know, I live in hope that one day, you'll have a son or daughter who is exactly like you."

Blinking, he stills from where he was about to plop the slightly damp dish towel on the counter beside the sink. "Oh. Um. Thank you?"

His dad simply grins and pats him on the back before heading out, leaving Stiles standing in front of the sink as his mind goes a mile a minute. He's only sixteen, and things like having children of his own are so far ahead of where he is in his life as to be practically incomprehensible, but there it is, out in the open like that one unruly thorn still stubbornly sticking out from the stem of a rose. And obviously, even if he hasn't consciously been considering things like his hypothetical children, subconsciously, his brain is way ahead of him. _"Take Jathon and run!"_ Jathon, his little were-baby who will never exist. Which would be fine, except for the fact that it totally _isn't_, because he's realizing now that he wants it to - really, really wants it. Growing up, he's always had Scott, but that doesn't mean he hasn't wanted a brother or a sister, and until the fire, Derek had a huge family, so it stands to reason that he'd want kids of his own. Isn't that part of the motivation behind turning the newest members of the Hale pack? So, there's something they both want, and can't have, and it's because by some quirk of genetics, neither of them were born with the right number of X chromosomes.

How is that fair? How can that be fixed? It isn't, and it can't.

At the back of his mind, he feels his pulse rising, and he mechanically sets down the dish towel, forcing himself to turn and make the trip up to his bedroom. He pauses at the door, then slowly lets himself in. As soon as he shuts it, Derek is there. It's not the playful greeting he was hoping for earlier when he imagined it in the Jeep. Instead, it's strong arms wrapping him up, and a steady hand bringing his head down to a leather-clad shoulder, then rubbing through the fuzz of his hair. Through it all, Stiles finds it in himself to be grateful, for once, that Derek isn't given to excessive verbalization, because the last thing he wants to do right now is _talk about it_, about this thing that has thrown him so completely.

He really thought the only obstacles in their relationship would be Derek's and his dad's overprotective streaks, for different reasons. Nothing could have prepared him for dealing with _this_.

* * *

Eventually, Stiles has to pull himself together and deal with his homework. Derek sits in what Stiles privately considers 'his chair' - even though he's only sat there a number of times - and reads Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_, letting Stiles work in peace. After an hour or so of Algebra II, he's bored out of his mind and considerably less freaked out, though the pink elephant is definitely still present in the room.

It's when he glances at Derek for the third time in as many minutes that he hears Derek setting down is book and saying, "You know, there's always adoption."

Tapping his pen against his lips, Stiles sighs, "Yeah, I know, but I mean - is it really the same?"

"Do you think I care about my pack any less because they weren't born into it?" That - isn't actually an angle Stiles has considered until now. He knows, intellectually, that Derek cares about the others. Even before he became the alpha, before he even really knew Scott, Derek told him they were brothers. He also knows that the betas look up to, and care about, their alpha - Erica's worry over Derek from this afternoon comes to mind. But he supposes there is a difference between knowing it and having it confirmed, especially in light of his dad's completely innocent jibe after dinner.

"No, I guess not."

"Look, if this is really what you want, we have years before it's even really an issue - you still have two years of high school, college, starting a career - all of those things come first." Derek's lips quirk up at the corners as he tells him, "I realize this may come as a shock to you, Stiles, but you don't actually have to have all of the answers _right now._"

Maybe not, but he does have an answer to _that_. Scrunching his nose in irritation, Stiles throws his pen at Derek's smug face, and grimaces when he manages to catch it deftly with his stupidly awesome wolfy reflexes.

Being involved with a supernatural creature makes it very hard to have the last word. But then - he always has liked a challenge.


	11. Young lovers

**Our fic rec for today is called ****_Convenience_****, written by kaser. The story deals with the development of Stiles and Derek's relationship, as well as their relationships with the rest of the pack over more than two decades. It includes the next generation of Hales and Stilinskis, and deals with family life in a way that makes their triumphs and pitfalls easily relatable.**

* * *

Eventually, Derek has to leave, because while there are myriad things Stiles will do without his father's knowledge or approval, having a significant other spend the night is not among them. It would be different if Derek were nothing more than a friend in need of a place to stay, but he has a makeshift home and a pack that needs him, and they are definitely beyond the point where they could call each other 'just friends'. Besides, if he stayed, Stiles would always wonder how much of his presence could be attributed to simply wanting to be in his company and how much resulted from needing to protect the weakest member of his pack, which is insulting and emasculating to the point that he can't think about it too long without becoming a fidgeting mass of irritation. And so what if they stand in front of his open window trying to see how long they can search for each other's tonsils - without coming up for breath for a ridiculously long amount of time - before Derek actually vacates his room? If Derek has to practically pry himself away from Stiles, who still tries to follow him, until he has to grip onto the window sill to keep his balance? That doesn't make him some sort of damsel in a romance that's been retold a hundred times over, in a hundred different ways; it makes him a teenage boy with enough hormones to emotionally compromise the entire adult population of Vulcan in a way that is far less genocidal than Nero's. In fact, his hormones may be enough to double their population. He'd become more revered than Surak - unless, of course, they decided that inducing a planet-wide pon farr was an unforgiveable crime against their culture. Hmm.

His mental ramblings serve to bring his heartrate down, but even so, Stiles stays staring out his window for several minutes after Derek's departure. It's as he's standing there that his fatigue makes itself known in every cell of his body, and so after a time, he draws himself away to go through his nightly routine.

For once, he completely ignores his computer, bypassing it in favor of his bed. His dear, darling, beloved bed. He settles in and welcomes sleep like a long lost friend, falling into its warm embrace.

* * *

"Dude, for the last time, Allison will be _fine_. How is it that she's being cool as a cucumber about this whole thing, and you're the one freaking out?" Waking up to his best friend's photo showing on his buzzing phone, only to have to listen to him flying further and further into a panic over their plan for tonight, is so far down on his list of things he wanted to do today - in fact, it's not on the list at all. It isn't even mid-morning and he's already spent the past thirty minutes reassuring Scott while his brain tries to come online. It's his exasperation that finally breaks through the heavy fog of deep sleep.

He needs a new best friend. Badly. Maybe Erica would be willing to take the spot? But then Scott would pout at him for the rest of ever, so maybe not. _"'Cool as a cucumber,' Stiles? Really?"_ Well, at the very least, he can be glad that something he's said broke through his best friend's little meltdown, although he would prefer that his response be something more along the lines of 'Yes Stiles, you are a wise and all-knowing Yoda, and I bow to your superior understanding. If you say that Allison will be fine, then so she shall be.' However, Stiles knows when to pick and choose his battles - really, he does - so he'll simply be grateful for small favors and move on with his life.

"You wish you had the same staggering grasp of all things vernacular. Now, go canoodle with your girlfriend - as far away from the rest of the Argents as you can possibly get while staying within city limits - and leave me to clean in peace. I've got dust bunnies waving at me from every corner of this house, and nowhere near enough carrots in the fridge to feed them all, so they have to go." It isn't really that he's been putting off cleaning the house - the bathrooms and the kitchen get a weekly scrub-down, and the trash is always out on Monday night so that it's there for the trash truck on Tuesday, but the mopping and dusting around the rest of the house have fallen to the wayside in light of recent events. Stiles finally has the time and the energy to do something about it, and he intends to take full advantage of that fact.

He's been the one in charge of keeping the house in order since his mother died, and he takes his job seriously. Stiles isn't a clean freak by any stretch of the imagination, but he doesn't have an actual job, and so he does what he can to make life easier for his dad. It probably doesn't help with the whole Beauty and the Beast image he's trying to shake, but he puts his iPod in his pocket and listens to music with his earbuds in order to leave his dad undisturbed, dancing around while he works - or is that Snow White? Come to think of it, a lot of the Disney Princesses have a habit of shaking their groove thing while they do their whole domestic routine.

It's while he's humming and dancing along to _Thriller_, and wielding a mop at the same time, that he feels a familiar set of eyes watching him. The embarrassment is immediate and acute, but he ignores it and keeps his back turned, trying to pretend he isn't electrically aware of his intruder's scrutiny. Over the years, Scott has caught him in the act more times than Stiles can count, because once upon a time, before Allison the beautiful and deadly, they lived in each other's back pockets, and that included having keys to each other's houses. Belting out the chorus since he's far enough away from his dad's room that it won't disturb him, he tells himself that this is really no different.

That defense goes right out the window when two hands come up to remove his earbuds, and a pair of lips whisper in his ear, "You're doing it wrong." _Rude_. He almost asks how Derek even knew what he was listening to, before remembering exactly the kind of company he's keeping these days. Privacy? What is that?

"Oh, yeah? You try to move like Michael on a wet wooden floor and not fall on your ass."

He hears a chuckle, feels the staggered puffs of breath against his neck and ear. "Here, let me show you." He gets his music back, along with a werewolf plastered along his back. By the time the song has finished, the entryway floor has been brought back to its usual grime-free glory, and Derek has guided him through the rest of the steps.

Stiles sets the mop down, steps away and takes out his earbuds again, after which he asks, "To what do I owe the pleasure of your breaking and entering today?"

"It's almost 1:00."

Nodding, Stiles waves a hand in front of himself in lieu of saying 'Go on.'

"Have you eaten yet?"

His stomach grumbles audibly in response, and Stiles shakes his head. "I was just going to heat up some of the leftover lasagna, but it'll keep. Why? Are you asking me out on a date? Is this a thing that you are doing?"

Derek raises an eyebrow, fighting against the smile that clearly wants to break out, because Stiles is just that awesome. "That's the idea, yes."

There's not much in the way of restaurants in their dinky little bedroom community, but there is a Chipotle in the next town over, and so they head that way. While he's driving, Stiles flicks his eyes over at Derek. "So, how do you know the 'right way' to dance to that song? Do you spend a lot of time watching old Michael Jackson videos when no one else is looking?"

"No. One of my cousins got married on Halloween, and so she had a Halloween-themed wedding. She made us all take dance lessons."

Concerned, Stiles takes his eyes off the road again briefly, but Derek doesn't seem bothered. Maybe he needs this. He's the only one left who remembers stories about his family - the good, the bad, and downright mortifying - and so maybe it's time for him to start talking about them, sharing those memories with other people. He knows it helps him on Mother's Day, his mother's birthday, and the anniversary of her death to share stories with his dad, and there are so many more dates, so many birthdays and Mother's day and Father's day for Derek.

"So, were you always ridiculously coordinated, or did you go through an awkward phase where you tripped over your own feet, too?"

"Oh, so you're saying that's a phase for you?" That falsely solicitous tone is so unnecessary.

"Well, that would depend on how you define a 'phase'."

Derek sort of snickers at him, and Stiles has to purse his lips to avoid smiling. "Typically, if something is considered a phase, that means it has a beginning and an end."

"Well, then, there you go," Stiles says, lifting a hand off the steering wheel for emphasis. "It's definitely a phase."

"Oh? And when did this phase start for you?"

"Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of... eleven months?" That's when his mother said he started walking, right?

The air of smug superiority emanating from the passenger seat is undeniable, but when he checks out of the corner of his eye, Derek has a fond upward tilt to one side of his mouth, so Stiles decides that he can live with it.

"So about those dance lessons..." They spend the rest of the afternoon trading stories about their families, though while they're in Chipotle, they have to stop, the music too loud for them to hear each other easily. They order their burritos to go and drive out to the spot Stiles and Scott like to hang out in the woods, which is far enough away from Derek's family home and the hunters infesting it for them to relax. He's glad when they're done that they both got onions and pico, because their breath is equally ripe, and neither of them can be bothered to care as they take another break from talking in order to put their lips to an even better use.

It's both a blessing and a curse when Stiles feels his phone going off in his pocket. Derek's lips still above the spot on his collarbone where Stiles fully expects he will have a rather florid hickey in the very near future, and Stiles has to remove his hands from Derek's back pockets where they'd wandered earlier. Scott again. Why is he not surprised by this turn of events? "Please tell me you are either hopelessly lost or bleeding."

_"Um, no, actually. Why? You can't tell me that you enjoy dusting that much, Stiles, I know you."_

Derek holds his hand out for the phone and stares at him pointedly. A challenge, huh? Stiles can handle that. "Was there something you needed, Scott?"

Although he can't make out the actual words, Stiles can tell from the high pitch of his friend's voice that they've caught him completely off-guard. He wonders if Scott actually realizes what he just interrupted, although he'd imagine from the way the pack has apparently been able to sense the connection between him and Derek that it wouldn't be too hard to figure out. Judging from the self-satisfied look in Derek's eyes, that's exactly what he wants, and Stiles would be irritated about their news being announced this way, but it's technically only surprising to Stiles himself, so there really isn't a point.

"Did he say how much to use? Mhmm. Good. I'll talk to you later Scott." Derek ends the call and tells Stiles that Dr. Deaton gave Scott the sedative.

"Guess we'd better get going. We've got snakes to catch, masters to stop. It's a tough job being in charge of protecting the good people of this town from the things that go bump in the night, but somebody has to - mph!" They don't leave the woods for another fifteen minutes or so, and in spite of the fact that everyone in the pack will know what they were doing as soon as they get a whiff of their mutually unresolved desire, it's totally worth it.


	12. Turns them to hunters

**I re-watched Hunger Games with meine Mutter this morning - and yeah, I totally cried like a baby when Rue died, even though I saw the movie at the theatre, and I've read the book several times over. If you haven't read the series or seen the film yet, seriously, go do it. Collins is an absolute genius, and her worldbuilding is something I'm kind of in awe of.**

**The fic rec for today is called ****_IKEA for Beginners_****, a fluffy and kind of cracky fic with tons of pack feelings. You can find it on Ao3 under the Stiles Stilinski/Derek Hale tag, or by going to brilligspoons' Ao3 page. You should also go check out ****_Pale Horses_****, which I've recced before. I just got the e-mail notification that it's been updated today, and I can't wait to go read the latest chapter - yes, I am that hung up on that fic. Seriously, it's awesome.**

* * *

For once, Scott and Allison are not the ones who show up rumpled and flushed and grinning just a little too widely - well, Stiles is grinning and flushed, Derek is apparently above all of that, giving his betas his best 'I am the alpha and you will keep your mouths shut' glower. It would probably be more effective if he would remove his arm from its place around his mate's shoulders, but Stiles isn't about to point that out. For one thing, they're about to attempt something that will put the entire pack in danger, meaning Derek's protective instincts must be running even higher than they have been for the past few weeks - which is really saying something, because personal space? Totally a foreign concept before, and now it's like it would take diagrams and lectures in order to explain, while running the risk that it still wouldn't really compute in his wolfy brain - and for another, Stiles kind of likes having his arm there. Kind of a lot.

"Aren't you two just the cutest thing?" Erica is capable of cooing - who knew? Stiles didn't, and he could have gone the rest of his life without finding that out, actually, because it's kind of terrifying coming from her, in addition to being intentionally insulting.

He's going to take the high road on this one. Really, he is. "Say what you want - I honestly don't care. Just know that I reserve the right to mock you endlessly whenever you find your own mate."

Becoming a member of the rabbit-eating club apparently meant that snarking was their default state, because Erica before the bite would never have been able to pull off tilting her head and widening her eyes in a pantomime of innocence and asking, "Was that supposed to be news?" with more sass than Buffy Summers. Does that make him Willow? Because he really, _really_ doesn't want to be Xander.

Thankfully, the dream couple arrives before things can derail into an all-out snark fest. Allison is carrying her special duffle bag, and Stiles kind of wants to check it to see if it's enchanted like the one in _Mary Poppins_, because he's seen the contents of that thing laid out before, and it is truly astonishing the amount of equipment that fits in that amount of space. Instead, he waves with his free hand and gets ready to really get down to business.

"Alright, the gang's all here. Good. Awesome. Is everybody clear on what we'll be doing tonight?" They all say yes. Of course they do - when they first hashed out the plan, they went over every detail. He's just feeling a little on edge about the fact that the star pack members of the night will both be human, even though he knows it's necessary in order to get around Jackson's natural reaction to the presence of other predators - Allison will be doing her freaky but awesome ninja-hunter thing, sneaking in and administering the sedative, while Stiles will be coming along to help haul Jackson out to Allison's car.

There are no words for how grateful he is to have someone else in the pack who owns a vehicle that doesn't have a license plate number in the system. Not only will it give his poor, recently abused Jeep a break, it will help immensely when it comes to evading the local law enforcement. Everyone on the force knows his baby on sight, and Derek's been a suspect in a few too many murders for anyone's comfort when it comes to using his Camero. Allison's car is boring - sensible and nondescript. A mom car. Stiles swears to himself that from now on, he will not think disparaging thoughts about mom cars. In fact, if it wouldn't be a gross betrayal of his baby, he would trade his Jeep in for a mom car in a hot second.

Stiles is drawn away from contemplating the relative merits of vehicular fidelity in relation to pack safety by Allison holding up a small glass bottle. "I brought something that might help us keep Jackson contained." In the bottle, there is a clear, slightly viscous fluid. At first glance, it seems innocuous, unless one has encountered the substance before - which Stiles most definitely has.

He's ready to run before he's even fully registered how truly frightening he instinctively considers the little glass container, unknowingly sending a ripple of tension through the entire pack. "Do I even want to know how you managed to get a hold of that much of Jackson's super spit?"

Blinking at him innocently, Allison shrugs as if it's no big deal. "That night that we brought Lydia and Jackson to Scott's house, he left some of his venom behind."

"And you just magically had the equipment necessary to bag and tag paralytic substances?" Again, freaky but awesome ninja-hunter - huntress? Eh. He'd find her utterly terrifying if she hadn't somehow managed to fall for _Scott_ of all people, who underneath the growling and the claws is pretty much the biggest marshmallow ever to howl.

"We can thank my father for that one - a hunter must always be prepared to learn about the supernatural creatures he or she encounters." She says that last part mockingly, as though she's quoting someone.

As much as it sickens Stiles to think about Chris Argent trying to turn his daughter into another soldier in her family's war against "the supernatural," he has to admit, "Sounds like father-daughter bonding time has been coming in handy lately." He glances around at the werewolves surrounding him, and notes with some surprise the way that they begin to relax. At some point, when they aren't trying to save the day, he's going to experiment with the connection between himself and the rest of the pack, because all things being what they are, he shouldn't be able to affect everyone's moods so strongly.

For now, he'll settle for going over the plan yet again, until they can all recite it verbatim, because he may be a little on the impulsive side, and he might occasionally geek out at the truly amazing things that are somehow _real_ and a part of everyday life in Beacon Hills now, but he also knows from far too much experience how quickly those things can lead to everything going to hell in a handbasket.  
…

"You are seriously my idol. Dump Scott and marry me, please?" It's probably a good thing that Derek is several miles away, getting the bunker ready with the rest of the pack, because Stiles is pretty sure hearing something like that would make him go off the rails a bit, regardless of how ridiculously not serious he's being right now. He can't help the fact that watching Allison pick the lock on the Whittemore family's back door was like watching a work of art being brought to life by the hands of a master. She's pretty much the most amazing chick ever to walk the planet, and he grew up carrying the biggest torch ever for _Lydia Martin_, so that's saying something.

She snorts softly and then they both go silent, certain that from this point on, even their beating hearts will be too loud, and equally certain that there is nothing they can do about it. They tread lightly across the wooden floor of the kitchen, working their way toward the staircase. According to Isaac, who used to be invited over to play with Jackson, back when they were too young to understand things about cliques and social more; before Mrs. Lahey and his brother died; before Mr. Lahey lost sight of what a blessing still having at least one of his children truly was; Jackson's bedroom is the last room on the second floor.

They make it there without incident, but Stiles can't find it in himself to feel grateful just yet. Getting in is the easy part. Getting out alive and undetected? Yeah, he's definitely not counting his chicks - or baby lizard things, he's not picky - until the sedative and the toxin have taken effect.

Holding her breath, Allison eases open the door, and they peer at Jackson. To all appearances, he seems harmless, utterly dead to the world - as they all should be in the wee hours of the night, although, really, who is Stiles kidding? If he had his way, he'd be online right now, playing _World of Warcraft_, or he'd be trying to be quiet while thinking about all of the things he wants to do with Derek in the not-so-distant future - one arm draped over his pillow, the other buried beneath it, his face half-smushed in the no-doubt decadent fabric. Allison turns to send a wide-eyed look at Stiles, and he tries to send her a reassuring look in return, but he's not entirely sure how well he pulls it off, considering he's every bit as close to peeing his pants as she is, if not closer.

Still, she takes the syringe from her pants pocket, along with the bottle of venom, and unscrews the lid, coating the needle. Stiles gingerly removes the bottle and its top, shutting it as tightly as possible, and watches as she starts her way toward the bed, syringe at the ready.

Three feet from the bed, Allison stills as she and Stiles watch the world's deadliest sleeping beauty give a definite _twitch_.


	13. Try to tear my way in

**Today's fic rec is available under the Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski tag on Ao3, or Medie's Ao3 page. It's called ****_Ella_****, and it is a kidfic that has a more serious tone to it than your average kidfic, since the story opens with Stiles being called into the local police station for one of the little girls in his class (Ella) because her family home has just been burned down - with all of her family in it. Sounding familiar? Yep, that's right. Little Ella is the last remaining member of a pack of werewolves, and it's up to Stiles to get her to the safety of the Hale pack and to be her guardian. It's already starting to look pretty juicy, with the noticeable tension regarding the reason behind Stiles leaving Beacon Hills in the first place, and with fear that the hunters will come to finish their 'job' and tie up all the loose ends.**

**In other, less enjoyable news, I may have to start updating this every other day, in order to prevent lengthy gaps between the last few updates, since I only have seventeen chapters up on Ao3 at the moment, though I am working on the eighteenth. Tentatively, there will only be about three or four more chapters of this after that, but we'll see how it goes.**

* * *

It would be a lie to say that his life flashes before his eyes, though perhaps that would have been preferable to the way that Jackson becomes fixated in his sight. He desperately wants to do something - run, maybe? - but no longer knows how to move, his limbs as impossible to direct as those belonging to a marionette robbed of its strings. Thankfully, this is Allison's element, and she recovers from her fear within a fraction of a second, reacting so quickly that the emotion never even has time to settle on her face, fierce determination winning out as she darts forward and jabs the needle into the neck of the still-reclined form.

Even as she leaps back and away from the bed, Jackson's eyelids snap open, clear, human eyes bleeding into reptilian yellow, and Stiles grabs a hold of her arm in order to draw her further from the danger. They can see it the moment the sedative takes effect, kanima eyes being replaced by furious and disoriented human ones as they slide shut once more. Hopefully that means that the paralytic qualities of the venom will actually stand a chance of working, but it's difficult to know when Jackson's other form is so easily called to the surface. He's had time for both parts of himself to integrate now, and there isn't a safe way to determine how much of him is still human. Stiles thinks back to that night at the club, shaking his head. _When's the kanima not the kanima?_ It's entirely likely that the better question at this point is whether or not there's any distinction between human and creature at all.

They stand huddled together for several precious seconds, waiting to see if Jackson will somehow overcome the venom and the sedative, and Stiles is grateful that he's here with Allison, and not another member of the pack. She may be fearless, but that doesn't stop her from having a healthy dose of self-preservation, and she'll never actually make him feel inferior the way that the werewolves in their rag-tag band do, sometimes without even noticing.

A few more frantic heartbeats pass, and then they glance at each other before swiftly returning their respective gazes toward their soon-to-be-captive, who looks, for all intents and purposes, utterly impotent. "Think we can move him?"

Allison shoots Stiles another look. "Only one way to find out." Then, she's stepping forward again and giving Jackson's shoulder a poke that looks hard enough to bruise, retreating tensely and then letting out a giddy sigh of relief when nothing comes of it.

"Okay, then. I sure hope you ate your wheaties this morning, because this guy's gonna be heavy." Stiles steels himself and then starts dragging the newly dead weight toward the edge of the mattress, allowing him and Allison to both take a side and heave Jackson off the bed. It's moments like this where he wishes he had some sort of supernatural abilities - not necessarily of the howling-at-the-moon variety - in order to speed up the process and make it less painful.

And painful it most assuredly is. The entire time they're working their way down the overlong hall and toward the winding staircase (Why, _why_ does the staircase have to wind? What kind of evil plot is _this_?), they cringe and wince and cast furtive glances at each unintentional _thump_, _thud_ and _skid_. Stiles swears that by the end of this, the stress will have removed at least ten years of his life.

There's a heart-stopping minute at the foot of the stairs when they hear a car alarm going off somewhere further down the street. Stiles and Allison stare at each other in mute horror, reflexively tightening their grip on their less than helpful charge, because if anything is going to bring the protective wrath of the Whittemores down on them, it will be that stupid car alarm drawing them from what, at this point in the night, should be a reasonably deep sleep. If he could feel anything but the racing of his heart and the sweat on his palms, Stiles would find it in himself to be pissed that something as mundane as a car alarm could potentially ruin their so-far successful mission.

Eventually, they decide by holding a conversation with their eyebrows alone (And seriously, how cool is that? Stiles can be stealthy. Stiles _is_ stealth. He'll be a freaky but awesome ninja - but not a hunter, never a hunter; he has an afinity for werewolves parallelled only by his love of curly fries - yet.) that they'll have to hope for the best, because neither of the Whittemores have jumped out at them to scream "kidnappers!" by this point, which likely means that they aren't going to.

They book it to the back door and don't stop until they're within inches of Allison's car. The contrast between the care with which they ease open the car door and the grateful plop and shove of their cargo into the backseat is almost enough to send them into fits of hysterical laughter, but they rein it in, gently shutting the car door and then high-tailing it into their own seats. When the car doors are all locked and the engine is running, they spare a single, precious moment to revel in their mutual awesomeness, sharing a high-five. "Psh, who needs werewolves? We've got this saving the world thing in the bag!"

Allison grins as she starts off in the direction of the bomb shelter. "Don't tell the others. It would crush them if they knew we only kept them around for their good looks."

"They are very pretty, aren't they? It's almost obscene." Sighing, Stiles sends his partner in crime a comiserating glance. "Let's face it, we're doomed to be surrounded by beautiful people."

"I promise to grin and bear it if you will."

"Well, _someone_ has to stick around to keep those crazy wolves out of trouble. Might as well be us." It's tragic, really, the lengths to which they are forced to go for the good of the pack. Judging from the genuine joy that somehow manages to outshine the adrenaline high both of them are riding right now, neither of them would have it any other way.


	14. I howl when we're apart

**So, I'm pretty sure everyone has noticed that we've gone from daily updates to updating every other day. I thought I'd be pretty much done with this fic by now, but that hasn't happened, and classes start on Monday, so updates may get fairly spotty soon, for which I apologize. **

**Anywho, it's time for our fic rec of the day! Today's fic is written by Cheshyr, who posts on Ao3. It's called ****_Wanderlust_****, and can be found under the Stiles Stilinski/Derek Hale tag, or on Cheshyr's Ao3 page. The fic deals with the problems Mama Stilinski gifted Stiles with before and after she died, and it's poignant and painful and sort of beautiful. It's an AU that doesn't take season two into account, which can actually be really enjoyable - sometimes it's nice to disregard the canon and just let your imagination go. If anyone knows me from the ****_Merlin_**** fandom, you already know I'm somewhat of a fan of this sort of thing. Anyway, it's a wonderful read, though I will say it's rather heavy.**

* * *

For most of the drive to the bomb shelter, Stiles and Allison remain quiet, Stiles keeping an eye on their guest in the backseat, Allison keeping both eyes on the road. They both feel on edge, and it shows. There's something eerie about the utter stillness of Jackson's body that is impossible to ignore. Unlike the previous kidnapping, where Stiles only had to face an unconscious Jackson for the five or so minutes it took to clean and dress him and then situate him in the police car, now he's just _there_. Yet again, he is grateful that they decided to take Allison's car.

He doesn't need any more unpleasant memories attached to his Jeep.

When they arrive at their destination, Scott, Boyd, and Isaac are there to greet them. Boyd takes Jackson off of their decidedly human hands, carrying him as easily as one might carry a toddler passed out after a long day at the park. Scott and Isaac walk on his left and right sides respectively, while Stiles walks in front of them and Allison takes up the rear, her crossbow at the ready. The journey from the parking lot to the shelter is brief but tense, and then Stiles texts Derek to let them in.

Earlier in the evening, Stiles had given Derek the code to the shelter, which his dad knew due to his position as sheriff. Stiles always knew the snooping he did in his dad's office would be useful someday; he simply never expected to need the information he gleaned for things like staging a kanima intervention.

Let it never be said that a healthy dose of curiosity and paranoia every now and then doesn't pay out in the end.

The main entrance to the bomb shelter is a hideous brown structure that looks like it came straight out of an old military base, all economical lines and foreboding, utilitarian concrete and steel. In Beacon Hills, third graders are taken on a tour of the building as a part of their studies on the history of their home town. For some, it's fascinating, for others, it's terrifying, because the most important parts of the shelter aren't in that first structure. Instead, they are below ground, and carry on for several miles beneath the town. Supposedly, at the time the shelter was built, there was enough space and supplies for the place to be a safe haven for the entire population of Beacon Hills for up to six months, in the event of a nuclear attack.

The area that the pack is interested in is the enormous freezer, long since emptied of the food it was originally meant to contain. It's located about a mile into the shelter, and out of all the places within the human version of an ant hill, it stands the best chance of containing Jackson if and when he decides to commune with his serpentine side. The walls are a foot thick all the way around, and the frigid temperature should render kanima-Jackson more docile, given the way most reptiles react to an absence of heat.

Standing in front of the entrance, Stiles cannot entirely fight the feeling that something is wrong. He casts a glance at the betas gathered behind him, takes in the tightness of their mouths, the focus in their eyes. He can't see Allison right now, but he knows she's ready and waiting for trouble. Thinking back to the meeting several hours ago, he remembers the way that each of the werewolves reacted to his stress and tries to calm himself. It's understandable that he's a little  
nervous, but none of them can afford for their emotions to get in the way of their plan.

Still, it would help if Derek could text him back.

Before his pulse can rise too much, the door begins the slow process of sliding back, and Derek is there, eying him with a gleam of what he's beginning to recognize as protectiveness that borders on possesive. He can feel his entire body relaxing, and then he's walking forward and about to ask why, exactly, it's too much to ask for Derek to send a message to let him know that nothing's wrong, when he feels the vibration of his cell in his back pocket.

Getting out of everyone's way, and beginning the long trek to the freezer room, he pulls out his phone and sees that it's a message from Derek. He sends Derek a confused look and opens the text, which reads simply _'On my way_.' Huh. Guess it's a good thing he hadn't opened his mouth yet. That could have been fairly awkward.

"Did you have any problems?"

Flailing a bit, Stiles turns to look at Derek, who wasn't anywhere close to him seconds before. "You mean other than the fact that Jackson weighs a _ton_? No, we were fine. Easy as pie. I'm actually thinking of working for the CIA or some sort of special ops group after I graduate."

"And you're lying to me because...?" _Werewolves._ He wouldn't really say that he's the king of misdirection or anything, but prior to so many mad and hairy beings becoming a significant part of his life, he at least managed to have _some_ secrets. He doesn't have more than a few seconds to ponder the injustice of his total lack of privacy before there is a hand on the back of his neck, tugging him close and holding him there firmly. _"Stiles."_

Holding back what promises to be a truly world-weary sigh, Stiles tries to play it off. "Alright, so maybe he woke up for a second or two and started shifting - it turned out completely _fine_, because Allison swooped down and doped him up like some sort of avenging needle-wielding angel, and he was out almost immediately. But really, I think the main problem is the fact that the guy needs to lay off the weight training. All that muscle? Not fun to haul down a flight of stairs, in case you were wondering."

The hand on his neck tightens, though not enough to hurt. Still, he can practically feel the pain of teeth grinding against each other, and they're not even his.

His back twinges preemptively.

Stiles can see lots of angry, overprotective scent-marking in his future.


	15. I want to find you

**The rec for today isn't a fic, it's actually a sort of essay/documentary type thing? If fandom is even capable of producing something along those lines. It's called ****_The Things You Say_****, and it is co-written by lazulisong and sami on Ao3, and it can also be found under the Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski tag. It's about the importance of not misrepresenting characters with disorders (in this case, ADHD). I will confess, when I started writing fics about Stiles, I only did research on the effects of Adderall, because I didn't feel the need to research the behaviors people with ADHD exhibit, since I was writing****_ Stiles_****, trying to capture ****_his_**** personality, not some random character with that diagnosis. Aside from that, growing up in the GT program, I was friends with plenty of students with ADHD, and have actually suspected that I have it, as well, though I've only officially been diagnosed with dyslexia. There's actually significant evidence of a link between children being diagnosed with ADHD and students who are considered gifted and talented by the National Association for Gifted Children, but I digress. The point is, if you are going to write about a sensitive topic, make sure you are sufficiently informed. You wouldn't go to cast your ballot on election day without doing your research, would you? No? Then consider researching things like ADHD before writing a character with that diagnosis equally as important as researching a candidate's political record before voting him/her into office.**

* * *

When they finally reach the room, it almost takes him by surprise. Still, he steps forward and puts in the code used for the more important rooms within the shelter, moving out of the way as soon as the door begins to slide out from the wall. It's tempting to whistle the opening notes of the original _Star Trek_ theme, but he holds back, partly out of fear that no one will recognize the joke, partly out of compliance with the weird vibes he cannot seem to shake. Instead, he moves to give Boyd a wide berth with his volatile cargo, which the beta deposits swiftly and competently, with an economy of motion and sound - as he does everything.

After that, Stiles uses the code to lock the door, leaving all of them to station themselves around the hallway.

Sitting around and waiting for someone - or something, because Stiles hasn't entirely ruled out the possibility that the master is some sort of demon or fiend from beyond the grave - to arrive might be incredibly mind-numbing, but for two things. The first is the inescapable sense that they have miscalculated, have underestimated whatever they are about to face, coupled with the uncomfortable knowledge that he is never wrong when he believes that everything is about the hit the fan. The second is the way that everyone is aware of their alpha clinging to Stiles like he wants to sink into his skin and stay there.

Before, when Derek's cro magnon tactics weren't recognized as intimate, they left Stiles feeling irritated and reluctantly turned on - a detail he sorely hoped no one would pick up on at the time, though he has a feeling now that everyone was simply giving him the space to sort everything out; someone must have had a word with Scott, because his best friend is just _not_ that subtle. Now, it's hard to remember, with his back against Derek's chest and Derek's arms encircling his waist, why he ever wanted to avoid having Derek invade his space, because that contact is the only thing that is keeping him from feeling as though he is crawling in his own skin, the only thing keeping his mind from racing in a million horrible directions at once. It's better than Adderall, though slightly harder to store in pill form. Someone should get on that - except not, because Stiles would much rather keep the secure feeling he gets from being near Derek, from touching him, all to himself. He never thought that the withdrawn, emotionally reticent Derek Hale would act so openly affectionate. Perhaps, though, there are certain aspects of werewolf nature which cannot be denied or overcome, no matter how stubborn and unyielding the individual.

Or Derek really is just that possessive.

Regardless, the only one among the pack who seems discomfited by the way Derek is wolfhandling him is Scott. The poor guy cannot watch the two of them doing what basically amounts to snuggling in an upright position for long before averting his eyes, either to gaze at Allison adoringly, or to engage Isaac in quiet conversation. Boyd is as close to amused as he ever allows, a miniscule smile barely tilting up the corners of his lips. Allison has this look in her eyes like she finds the whole thing adorable, and Isaac doesn't seem to care one way or the other, more absorbed in keeping a wary eye on the door separating their pack from their comatose friend.

When his phone begins to buzz in his pocket, every werewolf turns and stares at him at the same time. His heart takes off at a breakaway pace, and he tries to reason with himself. It could totally be his dad - except, no, not really, because his dad probably assumes that he's currently dead to the world or battling mythological creatures on the internet and downing energy drinks and Reese's peanut butter cups for staying power. Reaching into his pocket, he draws out his phone and frowns when he sees the name on his screen. Why would Danny be calling him right now? They're lab partners, and for the most part, they only contact each other for chemistry matters. This is pretty out of the blue. Unless he's drunk dialing, but that hasn't ever happened before, so the odds are that this is something else.

Could the Whittemores have woken up after all? Maybe they found out their son is missing, called his best friend, and found out he's not there, either? Could Danny be calling to see if Stiles has done something stupid like kidnapping Jackson again? (It's not stupid, and he _has_ kidnapped Jackson again, but what Danny doesn't know can't get back to Daddy Whittemore or the police department.)

He debates with himself about answering for a few moments, then bites his lip and does it anyway. "Yo, Danny, my man-"

_"Stiles."_ At the audible panic in his lab partner's voice, he goes rigid in Derek's arms, setting everyone around him on edge. _"Stiles, I'm supposed to send you a picture. Let me know when you get it?"_

"A picture - what? Danny, what's going on?" If his heart was going fast before, it absolutely races now, that feeling that everything is going pear-shaped now becoming a certainty.

His fingers are shaking as he opens the file.

It's a picture of Danny, but that isn't what leaves Stiles horrified. Danny's eyes are widened in fear, his features drawn. He is standing in front of what looks like the door leading into the bomb shelter, and someone's hand is in the photo with him, on level with his head.

In that hand, there is a gun.

Stiles stares at the image blankly for an indeterminable stretch of time, and then he swallows convulsively and lifts the phone back to his ears. "What do you need? What does he want us to do?"

_"He wants you to come get me. He says he wants to do a trade."_


	16. Screaming in the dark

**I don't know why it's getting so hard to write new chapters for this fic, but it feels like the well is running dry - even though I know, ultimately, how I want it to end. Urg. I'm stuck right now on chapter eighteen, and it's driving me a bit insane. I just keep getting distracted by new fic ideas, and classes start back tomorrow and... and the last thing you all want to hear is me moaning about not being able to get on with the fic writing already. Yeah.**

**So! On with the fic rec of the day. ****_(Sacred) In the Ordinary_**** is a fic that you can find on Ao3 under the Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski tag, or idyll's Ao3 page. It's 78.8k of absolutely brilliant writing, set after the pack has seen the world, proved themselves, and grown together into something amazing and unbreakable. The Derek/Stiles aspect is present throughout the fic as an incredibly slow-burning but powerful relationship, and all of the other characters in the pack relate to each other in a really beautiful way. Chris Argent is actually married to Sheriff Stilinski in this, which I think was a bold choice over the typical solution of putting the good sheriff with Mrs. McCall, and it creates a lot of tension between the two of them, and with Stiles, considering that his dad will always be loyal to Stiles, but he also is devoted to Chris. Stiles is human in this fic, which I absolutely love, since I think that is the most remarkable aspect of his character in a world that is so marked by the supernatural. He's just human, but he loves his pack and defends them fiercely, and that's incredibly compelling.**

* * *

_"If you don't come alone, Stiles, he'll shoot me."_ The unspoken truth that at such close range, the bullet cannot possibly miss, comes through loud and clear.

Underneath the sheer terror for his classmate, something else roils. The staggering heat of it cuts through the ice gripping his spine, bringing him back to himself. The pack had known going into this that they might fail yet again, that the fallout from tonight would be messy and nearly impossible to contain. What none of them expected was for their efforts to drag someone so completely innocent straight into the ensuing chaos with them.

All around, the golden eyes of young betas flash at him, and he sees in them the feeling he could not name in himself, because until now, it is not something he has ever had to face. Fury. Blazing and uncontrollable anger. It makes his hands tremble with the need to _do something_, to make the master - because who else could it be? - pay for going after Danny. That he would _dare_ threaten Danny, of all people -

"Don't worry, Danny. I'm coming to get you. You just - just hang on until I get there, okay? You're gonna be fine." The line goes dead, and everyone else in the hallway moves to object, to claim that they should be the ones, but although he appreciates their concern, it is all futile. They all heard what Danny said - all save Allison - and so there is no reason for any of them to believe he will let someone go in his place. He is _going_ to find a way to get Danny out of this, if it is the last thing he does (It very well could be, and the thought is horrifying, but perhaps not as much as it should be. Stiles has come to accept the inevitability of his life-span being shortened by his involvement in all things supernatural, and if he has to give his life in order to save someone he considers a friend, then that is exactly what he will do.).

His heart breaks a little when Derek's arms tighten around him. They've had so little time. If he manages to make it out of this alive, Stiles promises himself that he will do everything he can to spend as much time with his mate as possible. "I could just keep you here." The ragged quality to Derek's voice makes the pieces of his heart that much sharper, but Stiles steels himself. This isn't about them.

"Allison." She stares back at him, and he can tell the moment she understands what he is asking of her, while everyone else is still looking between the two of them, perplexed. He curls over Derek's arms, exposing his mate's neck and head. Allison's crossbow is ready and aimed in the time it takes for his spine to curve, and none of the pack need to ask whether she has coated the tips with Jackson's venom or not. Someone could try and take her out, but they all know that her arrow would find its mark before she went down, and then there would be two members of their pack rendered unable to fight. For a moment, the arms around him squeeze just a little bit more, and then he is released. He's going to have bruises on his torso tomorrow, but for now, he doesn't care. It's comforting in a way, having a sensory reminder of Derek's love, something he can carry with him while he goes and attempts to be Batman once again.

Stepping away, he sweeps his eyes around the drab hallway, taking in almost everyone he loves in this world, and then his jaw clenches and his shoulders square. He nods and then heads off, for once choosing not to say anything. Words mean time spent doing something other than saving Danny, and that simply isn't an option.

Although the walk to the freezer room had taken a while before, it feels endless now, and Stiles has never hated Einstein's theory of relativity more than in his race towards the entrance. There is enough dark humor left in him to muse that at the very least, he will no longer consider Finstock's suicide runs something that might actually lead to an untimely death. This is far, far worse, and yet he shoulders his way through it, hearing a litany of _One more step. One more. One more. One more._ He couldn't slow down even if he wanted to - Danny is out there with a murderer right at this minute, and he must be losing his mind in terror, so Stiles simply has to do this, has to keep running.

So he does.

When he reaches the front room, he puts on a burst of speed and keys in the code with shaky fingers, and then he braces himself with one hand against the wall, panting while he waits for the main door to slide open.

He cannot even find it in himself to feel vindicated at the sight of Matt, slightly crazed and wholly determined, holding Danny at gunpoint. This is just one moment in a long string of moments where Stiles hates his tendency to reach the right conclusion ages ahead of everyone else. How many weeks ago was it that he tried to tell Scott about the strange certainty sitting in his gut that everything came back to that stupid camera? He cannot remember, and it honestly doesn't matter, because no matter the answer, the end result remains the same.

Standing away from the wall he'd been supporting himself with, Stiles raises his arms out in front of himself, hands and fingers splayed in the universal sign for _I come in peace_. That isn't exactly right, because he could quite cheerfully beat Matt to a pulp right about now, but he hopes that at least appearing harmless will reassure the psychopath enough that he'll be less likely to pull the trigger at the slightest twitch.

If it was just the two of them, and it was his own life in his hands, he wouldn't hesitate to badger and harangue Matt within and inch of his life - or to the point where he might make a mistake which could _cost_ Matt his life - but all things being what they are, he's going to suppress his usual impulses as much as he can. He owes that and much more to Danny. "Okay, Matt. I'm here, and I'm alone. What do you want me to do?"

Matt laughs, and as cliched as it sounds, his cold, crazed amusement raises the hairs on the back of his neck. "Well, isn't this a first. You're actually going to listen to me, Stiles? _You_? I'll bet your big bad wolf _wishes_ he could control you like this." And it's so wrong, hearing this killer talk about his relationship with Derek. That is something so personal, something that should not ever go beyond the pack which has become his family, and the implications behind Matt's words are such an injustice. Derek is bossy, absolutely. He's also possessive, and arrogant, and irascible. But he would never play mind games, would never threaten someone Stiles cares about in order to get what he wants. As much as he projects the image of a manipulative, cold-hearted alpha, he really isn't, and it takes everything in Stiles to keep his mouth shut, to not give Matt the satisfaction. When Matt realizes that he's going to be dealing with a far less responsive version of Stiles, he frowns a little, looking for all the world like a gross parody of a little boy denied his favorite toy. "Not feeling like playing tonight, Stiles?" He sighs theatrically. In any other situation, Stiles would mock him mercilessly for turning out to be such a drama queen. "Well, whatever. What I want from you is very simple. You have something that belongs to me. You're going to take me to it, and then you're going to have some of Derek's little wolves put it in my car. When all of you are back in the building, if I'm feeling especially generous, I might, possibly, let Danny here go."

While Stiles stares at the tableau in front of him, his peripheral vision picks up movement off to Matt's right. Keeping his eyes trained on Matt, he speaks as calmly as he can. "Okay, sure. Whatever you want, Matt. Just don't hurt Danny, okay? He hasn't done anything. He doesn't know anything. He isn't involved."

As his lips close on the last syllable, a pale, clawed hand snatches the gun away from Matt's hand, another coming up to clench around his throat. "Hello, boys. Fancy meeting you here."


	17. If you could only see

**Okay, wow. We've reached the point where there are no chapters ready to simply copy and paste. Chapter eighteen is in the works, but I don't know when it will be finished, and from now on, updates will be pretty sporadic. I'm sorry about that, but classes are back on, and I keep getting distracted by other projects (there are two Isaac/Scott, Derek/Stiles WIPs on Ao3 that I will start reposting here as soon as they are finished; I've learned my lesson about trying to repost things I haven't completed yet).**

**Thanks to all of you for your kind words and your patience.**

**Our fic rec for today is called****_ About Today_****, written by rufflefeather. You can find it on Ao3 on her page or under the Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski tag. It's one of the best groundhog day-type fics I have ever read, and the ending is absolutely perfect. Also - Derek, owning Spiderman socks. How awesomely adorable is that?**

* * *

Contingency plans are something Stiles has had to become intimately familiar with over the last few weeks, because it's impossible when taking four young werewolves and a human under wing to avoid the fact that things will go horribly, epically wrong faster than he can say 'Murphy's Law.' That Mad Eye Moody guy? Knew what he was talking about. Constant vigilance isn't just a funny thing to yell in Scott's ears when he falls asleep in class anymore. It has literally become a rule to live by. It's why he has started keeping several sets of clothing, in several different sizes, at the decrepit excuse for an old subway station (and, oh, the awkward looks _that_ Walmart trip had earned him; all Stiles can say is that it is a very, very good thing people have always viewed him as slightly eccentric but generally harmless, because his actions have started to really reflect that reputation recently), along with an extensive first aid kit, towels, a handful of burn phones, and a small treasury that can only be used in case of emergencies.

It is also the reason that when they started putting together the plan to lure out their Cuckoo for Coco Puffs kanima master, Stiles told Erica to sit their little operation out. At first, it looked like he would have a mutiny on his hands, which he had fully expected long before he ever opened his mouth. Thankfully, Erica was a bit more aware of Stiles than the other members of the pack, due in part to the crush she started nursing for him in middle school, but also because out of everyone in the pack, the two of them tend to be on the same wavelength more often than not - a fact which baffles Scott to no end, considering he's been Stiles' best friend since the beginning of ever. Her easy agreement to his proposal had left everyone else confused, with the two of them entirely unwilling to enlighten them, since that would defeat the purpose of their little plan.

Stiles has a feeling the penny is about to drop for the rest of the pack in a pretty big way. "Hey there, Catwoman. Nice of you to drop by." If he sounds a few breaths away from passing out from relief, no one can blame him, he's sure. Pissed off werewolves? Stiles can take them, no problem. Certifiable teenagers with guns? Totally not on the list of things he is qualified to handle.

"Well, I couldn't really leave the Dark Knight in the lurch now, could I?" Erica tightens her hold on Matt's throat, her claws digging hard enough to draw blood to the surface, and sends Stiles a smile that on anyone else, would be considered sunny, but on her is just plain dangerous. He has never been happier to have her on his side than in this moment, and that includes the afternoon she told him about Derek being his mate. Was that really only a few days ago?

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" At the sound of Danny's slightly hysterical tone - which is so wrong, because Danny is the _definition_ of chill - Stiles turns his eyes back to him, and he tries to figure out the least horrible way to handle this and prevent his poor lab partner from becoming even more freaked. It's probably a wasted effort, since the guy is staring at Erica's claws in morbid fascination, almost as though he wants to memorize the image of what he desperately hopes is a nightmare, in order to share it with someone later and commiserate about the crazy stuff that crops up in the subconscious.

It really sucks to be the one to burst that particular bubble. Stiles has contemplated suggesting the idea of bringing Danny into the pack before, as a way to entice Jackson to seek them out and possibly let them help as he tries to figure his double life out, but not like this. For all that he's had to start coming up with a million what-ifs and backup plans, someone actually _threatening Danny_ never made the list. Thinking back on it now, that was a pretty stupid oversight.

What can he say? He's still pretty new at this saving the world gig.

"Danny, I swear we will explain everything to you, but we really need to get moving. This isn't something we should be talking about out in the open." He glances at Erica, then stoops to grab the gun she knocked out of Matt's hand. Flicking the safety on, he tucks it into the front right pocket of his hoodie and asks, "You think you can keep Matt under control?"

"I feel insulted that you even have to ask," Erica gripes back. He might believe that she is completely unaffected by everything, except for the way her eyes check him from the tips of his short hair to the laces of his shoes, untied but unimportant at the moment. Better to look a little unkempt than to actually call attention to the problem by doing something about it. He may not be a werewolf, but he can still feel the need to not give an inch in front of a threat, to avoid indicating any sort of weakness.

"Humor me." It isn't a request.

Reacting as strongly to the command in his voice as if it came from Derek himself, Erica stands a little taller, holds her charge even harder. "I can handle anything this creep decides to dish out."

Stiles glances at all three of them and then nods tightly. "Then we should probably get going before Derek has a heart attack."

Without any sort of courtesy or ceremony - which, good for her, because Matt didn't deserve a second of either - Erica tosses the guy over her shoulder, holding onto his thighs with her claws still extended, goring the flesh. The sight of a girl manhandling a guy their age with such ease freaks Danny out even further, and Stiles can feel his lips twitch into a sympathetic half-smile, remembering what it felt like when he was first truly confronted with the supernatural side of life.

The smile slides right off his face when he hears Matt threatening furiously, "You idiots do realize that I'm going have Jackson kill all of you as soon as he wakes up, right?"

Erica outright _growls_ at that, and Stiles almost wishes he was a werewolf just so that he could bare his fangs and growl at the homicidal jerk, too. He settles for telling Matt, "Watch it. She may listen to me, but she's still way stronger than I am, and if she decides she wants to rip out your throat, I probably won't be fast enough to stop her." Stiles starts walking then, going from the near-pitch blackness of the early morning hours to the dim yellow light provided by the weak fixtures lining the shelter walls. He knows that Erica, at least, will be right behind him, and that Danny probably won't be able to leave without getting the answers he so desperately needs now.

He's proven right when Danny comes up to walk beside him. "What does Jackson have to do with any of this? And why would he be killing anyone for Matt? And what happened to Erica? Stiles, you said we shouldn't be out in the open while we talk about whatever this is, and we're not anymore. What the hell is going on?"

"Do you remember that video that Jackson made?"

"Yeah, so?"

"So, Matt must have been the one to edit it, and he's been using what he saw on there to get Jackson to do what he wants." It's not nearly that simple, but even with Erica letting her she-wolf show, trying to explain the ins and outs of Danny's best friend being a scaly version of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hide without some sort of proof - and possibly copious amounts of alcohol - is not going to pretty. Fun will be had by absolutely no one, so while he fully intends to let Danny in on everything he has been protected from for the last few months, he's still going to put it off for a little while longer.

He should have known he wouldn't get off that easily.

"Which includes killing people?" It's nearly a scoff, but Danny sounds way too worried for it to carry quite enough scorn. Stiles may never know why the two of them are such good friends, but it's obvious to anyone who cares to pay them attention that Danny and Jackson are completely devoted to each other - which Danny reaffirms when he insists, "Jackson is a lot of things, but he isn't a killer, and there's no way whatever's on that video would be enough to change that."

"Okay, look, you know how people who take the sleep aid commonly known as Ambien do all kinds of crazy stuff - stuff they would never do in their right minds - when they're asleep? And then they don't even remember it in the morning?" When Danny nods cautiously, Stiles makes this sort of, 'well there you have it' motion with his hands and then shoves them into his jean pockets, his right hand coming into contact with Matt's confiscated gun. Although he's used to working with firearms, thanks to bonding time with his dad when he was younger, the feeling of the cool metal sends shivers down his spine. This isn't a gun he has cleaned, assembled, and loaded under his dad's careful supervision. This gun was pointed at a classmate of his not fifteen minutes ago with deadly intent.

He is drawn out of his nightmarish musings when Danny objects to his admittedly lacking explanation. "That still doesn't explain why Matt would be using Jackson. And Jackson has never taken sleeping pills in his life - trust me, I would know."

Since he has no way to counter that really, Stiles shrugs and asks him, "What I'd like to know is how you got mixed up in all of this. How did Matt manage to kidnap you?"

Danny grimaces, piquing his interest even more. "We were supposed to be on a date."

Gaping, Stiles runs that over in his head a few times and then shakes it. Seriously, Danny's love life is just - "Danny, I'm seriously starting to worry about your taste in guys. How do you always wind up with such jerks?" Especially ones that reek of evil the way Matt does.

His mouth twists wryly as Danny says, "I guess I'm just lucky that way."

When this is all over, Stiles is totally going to find someone to set Danny up with, because this is just sad. No one should have such a horrible track record at _sixteen_.


	18. The beast you've made of me

**I'm clearly a horrible person, and not worthy of you guys At All.**

**I'm so, so sorry. I swear I haven't been holding this chapter hostage, or anything evil to that effect. I've just been super distracted with classes and politics (um, who hasn't been distracted by the mess in Egypt and Libya recently? Jeepers), and tumblr, which is basically eating my life.**

**Anywho, the fic rec for today is magdalyna's ****_I Took Your Name_****. You can find it on her Ao3 page, or by searching through the Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski tag - although going to her page would probably be faster. It's a tear-jerker of epic proportions, so proceed with tissues and chocolate.**

**Speaking of things that might need tissues and chocolate (is it horrible that I'm rooting for that reaction? Probably) ... let's get back to the show, shall we?**

* * *

Their odd little procession eventually arrives at the hall outside of the freezer room, and Stiles manages to take two and a half steps toward the group of anxious and infuriated werewolves before there are arms pulling him insistently toward a broad chest. Even though he knows he is in seriously hot water, and that he will be making up for the stunt he and Allison pulled earlier for a very, very long time, he relaxes into the hug instantly, allowing Derek to take most of his weight. He has been trying to keep it together ever since he received that horrible phone call from Danny, and the relief he feels at being able to release his hold on the tight control he had to have over his emotions is indescribable.

The quiet rumble of, "Never again, Stiles," which he hears and feels is not entirely unexpected, nor is it unwelcome, but he has his priorities, and so he straightens himself, bringing his own arms up to wrap around Derek's waist and raising his head from its place in the crook of his mate's neck.

Staring a stressed alpha straight in the eyes is a rather bold move, but the two of them have never treated each other as anything less than equals, and Stiles refuses to allow that to change now. "You want me to lie to you, big guy, I'll lie, but if we're both being honest here, you know I'd do it again in a heartbeat if I had to - which, considering the way our lives have been in the last few months, I probably will at some point." He expects the growl his response elicits, running a soothing hand up and down Derek's back. "Look, everything turned out fine, okay? Danny and I are fine, Erica turned up at just the right moment, and we finally have Jackson's master. I'm sorry I scared you, but I'm not sorry I did what needed to be done, and I really need you to be okay with that."

Derek stares back at him, and Stiles just knows that the poor guy is struggling with the knowledge that there is nothing he can do to change his mate's mind. He would feel more guilty about it, but one of the things that makes them _work_, one of the reasons that they are what they are to each other, is their inability to stay away from danger if it will protect the people they love, and how can Derek even ask him to deny that part of himself without being massively hypocritical? Eventually, he sighs and leans down just enough to press their foreheads together, closing his eyes and breathing in the uniquely homey scent of Stiles, and it is quiet in the hall as the pack gives the two of them their moment and Matt fumes from where he is still slung over Erica's shoulder.

"Stiles?" Danny asks, his curiosity finally getting the better of him as he raises his eyebrows significantly.

Blinking, Stiles twitches a bit and then turns his head to look over at his classmate. "Um. Right. Trust me, this is not as illegal as it looks. In fact - technically, it isn't illegal at all, since it's only wrong if stuff happens - not that _stuff_ hasn't happened, 'cause it totally has, and it was _awesome_, it just isn't the kind of stuff that-"

"Stiles," Scott interjects, torn between being horrified for his own brain and reluctantly amused at his best friend's misfortune (it's a look Stiles is intimately familiar with, having received it many, many times in his life), "just - stop talking, dude."

He opens his mouth, thinks about it, then purses his lips and nods slowly. Stop talking. Okay. He can do that. For about five seconds.

When he looks back at Derek, he sees the guy's lips twitching at the corners in the unmistakable signs of a smile threatening to form, and a good bit of amusement at the expense of Stiles and his unfortunately big mouth. Stiles would be way more offended about that fact if it wasn't so convenient. "Hello, Danny. I'm sure you remember me." Stiles feels the tips of his ears turn red at the knowing quality in Derek's voice. Does Danny remember him? Oh, _definitely_, judging by the answering color in his own cheeks.

"Yeah. Pretty sure I also remember the two of you being cousins... Miguel." Everyone looks mortified and amused at once, and Stiles wonders if he should start making arrangements to send them each to speak with Ms. Morrell for the rest of the school year. Then again, there probably is not enough counseling in the world to help them deal with the fallout from the last few months. Besides, there isn't a whole lot that they would be able to discuss with a member of the high school faculty; not if they wish to avoid landing in a psychiatric ward or piquing Gerard Argent's interest more than they already have.

At the sound of the muted _thump_, all traces of hilarity are erased, and everyone save Danny turns to stare at the freezer door. Before the sounding of the second _thump_, Allison has her crossbow trained on the door, and Derek has pushed Stiles behind him, crouching low and letting his claws come out. The betas in the pack gather around Allison and Stiles, though Erica hangs back, keeping hold of Matt. Swallowing even as his mouth becomes drier than Mr. Harris's lecture tones, Stiles removes the gun from his hoodie's right pocket, switching the safety off and leveling it at the place that kanima-Jackson's head will be, though he knows from Derek's encounters with Jackson's alter ego that bullets will only do so much.

"Boyd, Isaac, protect Danny. Scott and I have Stiles and Allison -" Even with Allison and Stiles shooting straight into the scaly green forehead charging toward the pack, the only thing that keeps Danny from being brutally eviscerated is the fact that Boyd and Isaac had started moving as soon as Derek spoke their names, Isaac leaping to grab his charge and then darting away, Boyd lashing out directly at the spot from which Danny was just removed, catching a dark green shoulder with an iron grip and spinning him about. Around them, Scott and Derek move to once again place themselves between their mates and the thing that hunts them.

It doesn't matter.

As soon as he recovers from Boyd's attack, Jackson is a dark blur, inflicting wounds that seep crimson stains onto the previously pristine cinder block of the bomb shelter floor. For one terrifying moment, Stiles thinks that his earlier actions will have been for nothing, as he watches one best friend advance upon the other and his terrified yet determined guard, and then it is not Isaac's pain-filled screams, but Erica's, that fill everyone's ears. She stops screaming, and Stiles fears the worst, but in the next fraction of a second, she lets out a defiant roar and Matt is held before her like a shield, her claws coming back to clutch at his throat.

"Call him off, or I'll kill you," she grits out, right into Matt's ear.

"You don't have the guts, Reyes." Matt's bravado is meaningless in the face of so many werewolves who can smell the acridness of his terror, hear the frantic arhythm of his heart.

"You wanna bet? You killed a new mother. You've threatened me and my pack. You made me have another _seizure_. There really isn't a whole lot I wouldn't do to you at this point. Call. Him. _Off_." With every pause comes a tightening of her fingers, easily finding the open places left over from before.

Somehow, Matt finds it in himself to laugh. It is an ugly, nauseating sound that elicits more than a few growls from among the pack. "_I_ did all those things? No. No, that was all Jackson. Well," he muses, a sick sort of pride in his voice, "except for Jessica. Jessica, I killed."

From his place within the circle of Isaac's arms, Danny lets out a strangled noise. "Why does everyone keep blaming all of this on Jackson?" Head swiveling around, two yellow eyes refocus on Danny, and stare. A beat. Two. Three. Gradually, yellow fades into blue, and Danny's own widen in recognition. He squirms to lean forward, calling urgently, "Jackson? Jackson? What happened to you?"

Jackson takes a halting step forward, mesmerized, and the others tense even further, muscles coiled and ready to spring. Another step toward Danny, and then he sways, looking from his master to his best friend.

Looking strangely focused, Matt removes his left hand from where it had been scrabbling to make Erica let go, and holds it out, fingers splayed. "Jacks-" There is a slick, wet gurgling from Matt's throat, and then a heavy _thud_ as Erica releases what is now nothing but a body.

Mere feet away, an answering _thud_ signals a newly human and very obviously bare Jackson falling to his knees on the hard floor, shivering in the cool air. Rather than look to his fallen master, Jackson gazes up at Danny, his eyes haunted and pleading. He lets out one broken whisper of his best friend's name before Danny breaks free from Isaac's shock-loosened hold and rushes to catch Jackson before his torso can impact the unforgiving cinder block.


	19. Until I wrap myself inside your arms

**Hey ducklings! **

**So, I was going through my old bookmarks on Ao3, and I found a fic I'd forgotten about until just now. After re-reading it, I decided it simply had to be the fic rec for the day, because even though it's shorter than what I typically rec, it's incredibly powerful in a sort of understated way. Seriously, it was all quietly intense and then there was this moment where it reached out and punched me right in the heart. It's called ****_Stop Me if I Say Too Much_****, and it's set some time in the future after an incident where Stiles puts his life on the line to protect Derek. You can find it either by searching through the Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski tag on Ao3, or take the much, much easier route and go to entanglednow's Ao3 page.**

**In other news: after this, there's only one more chapter, and then this fic is ****_done_****. I'll be posting chapter 20 some time tomorrow, and if all goes well, I should be able to start reposting another one of my Derek/Stiles fics here in a week or so (I've decided not to repost anything here until it's completed on Ao3 from now on, because I hate when there are unexpected gaps in between posting times on here, but for whatever reason, it doesn't really bother me when I post over there.).**

**And now for chapter nineteen.**

* * *

Everything stills, the way the world becomes eerily calm after a terrible storm, and the wreckage is left behind, but the only things that register at first are the silence, the sudden cessation of movement. Then, Jackson coughs, and the bizarre peace is broken. He opens his eyes, which had fallen shut as he passed out moments ago, and stares up at his best friend. Reaching up with a strangely heavy hand, his runs his fingers over Danny's face. At first, he looks fascinated, whether at the texture of his friend's skin, or some other thought known only to him, but then he tenses, becoming worried.

"What are you doing here, Danny?"

Demonstrating the same adaptability he shows in most things, Danny responds in a voice that only slightly betrays how freaked out the last hour of his life has left him. "You know, I keep asking the same thing about you, and nobody will tell me."

Stiles twitches at that, trying not to feel guilty. He fully plans to explain things to his lab partner now, if Jackson doesn't take care of the job for him.

Swallowing with a marked effort, Jackson licks his lips and then chews on them anxiously before asking, "But you're okay, right? I mean, I didn't..." He can't even bring himself to say the words, and it occurs to Stiles then, watching the two of them, that he should never have wondered why they were so close. It is written in every look, every word. Their bond runs every bit as deep as the one he has with Scott, although - he is fairly certain he and Scott have never looked at each other like _that_ before. He thinks about his earlier resolution, and revises it to reflect this new understanding. Maybe his matchmaking skills - of which, admittedly, he has none, especially if the attempts he made in his middle school years to set his dad up with Mrs. McCall are anything to go by - will not be required after all.

Danny shakes his head then, reassuring Jackson that he never laid a hand on him. They exchange more words, but Stiles is distracted by a quiet retching off to the side. He turns and sees his beautiful, brave Catwoman kneeling down as her body rebels against her, unable to fully reconcile with her actions from before. Stiles clicks the safety back on Matt's gun and passes it off to Allison. After a nod from the young hunter, he crosses to Erica quickly, pulling her hair back with one hand and rubbing in between her shoulderblades with the other.

"Hey there, Gorgeous. You were so brave tonight, you know that? You were amazing." He hears her sniffle a bit in response, and he sighs, his heart aching for her. "What do you need, huh? Whatever you want, I'll make it happen, okay?" It's more than a bit reckless, making promises he is not yet certain he can keep, but he truly does want to do whatever necessary to help her through this. He tries not to remember what it felt like after being part of the group to take out Peter Hale, but that does not stop the nightmares that wake him from time to time, the guilt and the regret he still sometimes feels at having taken another life, broken and unhinged as that life may have become before the end.

She sobs a little before whispering, "I want the b- the b- I want Matt _gone_. Just get him out of here. I can't-"

"Yeah, okay. Sure. Nothing to it. Guys," he calls quietly, still running a soothing hand over Erica's back, "can you take care of that, please?" Though he phrases it as a request, Boyd, Isaac, and Scott are quick to respond, and he vaguely hears the sound of their retreat. That leaves the rest of them to get the slightly incapacitated members of the group on their feet, and to try and clean up the evidence of their time in the bomb shelter.

The pool of blood where Matt's body lay is beyond remedy, since it has already begun to stain the cinder block, and Stiles unfortunately has never had the means to obtain the substance used to render genetic material unidentifiable. What they _can_ do is wipe all traces of their fingerprints off of the doors, and find the casings from the bullets Stiles fired and Allison's arrows. Derek and Allison take care of that while Danny and Stiles see to their respective charges, and that gives them a little more time to bring Jackson and Erica around enough for them to feel capable of leaving the bomb shelter behind them. Stiles offers up his hoodie to help shield Jackson from the elements, and Allison mentions having a spare set of Scott's clothes hidden in her car.

Eventually, they have everything as close to in order as possible, and Derek covers the pads of his fingers with the sleeve of his heather grey henley, locking the door behind them. Danny accepts the clothes from Allison, and helps Jackson, who is still fairly unsteady and disoriented, struggle into the slightly undersized things. Jackson apparently cannot help the way his nose wrinkles at having Scott and Allison's scents all over his body, but at the moment, it is the best that they can do.

Their party executes some creative shuffling in order to accommodate the six of them, but no one so much as mentions taking Matt's car, instead doing what they can to clean it of any leftover traces of Danny, who had thankfully been the only person to know about his "date" with Matt tonight. He had told his parents he was spending the night with Jackson, since he had seemed a little off for a few weeks, and that provides the perfect cover for Allison to drop the two best friends off at the Whittemore home.

They pull up to the curb outside of Jackson's house, and Danny carefully helps his friend climb out. With his arm around Jackson's waist, Danny leans down to stare at Stiles, with Erica still sitting on his lap. She could totally move now, since there's way more space in the backseat than there had been just moments prior, but she clearly is taking comfort from the continued physical contact, so who is Stiles to tell her to stop?

Danny's voice, when he speaks, is as stern as it ever gets. "I've known for a while now that I was out of the loop about whatever has been going on with you guys. But that isn't going to be the case anymore, is it?"

Stiles shakes his head, but it is Derek, in the end, who tells him from the passenger seat, "Get some rest, Danny. Take care of Jackson. We'll contact you about our next pack meeting."

"Right," is all Danny says after eying everyone still sitting in the car. Then he nods and brings Jackson up to the front door of the Whittemore house, withdrawing his key chain from his jean pocket and searching for the right key one-handed.

Stiles and the others watch over Danny and Jackson as they head inside, and then Allison's phone buzzes with an incoming text. "The boys are done with," she flicks her eyes over toward Erica and tries to be discreet by saying, "their job, and they're over at your house, Stiles."

"They're over at my - you know what?" Stiles decides, "I don't even want to know. Tell Scott we'll be there in ten minutes."

She relays the message and then pulls out of the Whittemore family's driveway. The trip is silent, everyone caught up in their own thoughts. When they arrive at the Stilinski household, there are no lights visible from inside, and Stiles raises his eyebrows before looking at Allison and checking to see if she will be joining them.

"No, I should really get home, but I'll see you tomorrow at school - or I guess it's later today, at this point, isn't it?"

"Yeah," he sighs heavily, in part because Erica has just climbed off of his lap and onto the pavement. "It's been a crazy weekend, hasn't it?"

Grinning sleepily, she offers, "At least we won't be going to school hungover."

"No, we'll just be zombies for the next few days. Huh. Zombie werewolves. Or would they be werewolf zombies? Anyway, you coming, big guy?" Stiles glances at Derek, who has just finished shutting the passenger side door and is now standing with his hands in his jean pockets.

He nods, saying softly, "For a little while."

Allison takes that as her cue to leave, parting with a quiet, "See you later."

Derek, Erica, and Stiles stare after her disappearing mom car and then Stiles rouses himself enough to lead the way to the front door, his lips quirking at the realization that this will be the second time in as many days that Derek has not needed to enter his home through his bedroom window. How's that for progress?

The three of them file into the house and see no signs of the rest of their pack. It doesn't take a werewolf's superior senses to understand what that means, and they all trudge up the stairs, making their way into his room. Stiles pauses in the doorway, taking in the pile of limbs covering his bed. "I'm pretty sure my bed frame has a weight limit, you guys." The boys look up at him blearily, and Stiles rolls his eyes. "_No_. No, Erica and I will not be joining you. There are sleeping bags in the linen closet -" Scott and Isaac are gazing at him with the most unfairly effective puppy dog eyes he has ever seen, and he shakes his head even as he caves to the inevitable. His back is going to kill him when he wakes up. "_Fine._ But I expect each and every one of you to be gone before my dad gets home from his shift."

Derek, the jerk, is _laughing_ at him silently, his shoulders shaking with it.

Glaring, Stiles mutters without any real conviction, "This is all _your_ fault."

Sitting in what Stiles sometimes accidentally thinks of as his chair, though the alpha has sat in it only a handful of times, Derek is still smiling after Erica has cleaned her hands in the bathroom, and she and Stiles have squirmed their way onto the bed, though now his eyes shine with approval, rather than mirth. That fierce pride in their pack stays with Stiles even as he slips miraculously into sleep, lulled by the warmth and the security of the people who have become a part of his family.


	20. I hunt for you

**So, this is the end of the line, chickadees. The final chapter. It's been an awesome - though admittedly frustrating, given updating delays and such - journey, and I so appreciate each and every one of you who took a chance and clicked on the link for this fic, who followed, favorited, and especially those of you who took the time to leave your thoughts in a review. You are all wonderful.**

**A couple of things - I'll be putting an asterisk next to a line in this chapter, due to the fact that it is almost a direct quote from 2x12, and I don't want anyone under any illusion that I'm claiming that line as my own. I'm not, and it's not.**

**A special shout-out goes to Twisted-67, who recced some songs for Stiles to taunt the rest of the pack with. They didn't make it into this fic, but I'm thinking about writing a one-shot for this 'verse using at least one of them.**

**While we're on the topic of music, the songs I listened to while writing this chapter were Linkin Park's ****_What I've Done_**** and ****_New Divide_****, and yes, I do recommend listening to them as you read.**

**Lastly, since this is the conclusion of this fic, I figured I should rec something especially awesome. The fic rec for this chapter is echoist's ****_Safe as Houses_****. You can find it on echoist's Ao3 page, or under the Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski tag. I can never remember if I warn in these recs for sex or not, but there is sexual content. It has werecats and Stiles being a badass genius, as well as a moment at the end that makes this fic one of my favorites for this pairing: **

**_He pulled Stiles closer against his chest and pressed his nose to the back of Stiles' neck. "Just, for now," he murmured. "Just let me have this for now."_**

**_"Yeah," Stiles answered, beginning to drift off to sleep in a cocoon of strong arms and gentle, almost apologetic hands. The scent of their commingled sweat drifted up from the sheets, washed over Stiles like a declaration, and he couldn't get enough of it. He pressed his face against the pillow, then leaned back against Derek's shoulder and nuzzled against his cheek. It made sense, Stiles thought, his mind heavy with sleep, that they even smelled good together. "Yeah," he said again. "As long as you want."_**

**Yeah. Thatpart is like a punch to the gut - in the best possible way.**

**And without further ado, the final chapter.**

* * *

"I am not going to _shoot at you_, geeze, Derek! In case you hadn't noticed, this is not a Marvel film, and you will not be able to stop the bullet with the power of your freaky mutant genetics. No. Not happening." Stiles seriously thought they were past the violent part of their relationship, but clearly, he was wrong. Admittedly, this is a little bit different, since Derek is blatantly asking for it, but that does not in any way endear Stiles to the idea of using his mate as a moving target. He almost wishes the bullets he shot that night a few months back had missed spectacularly, simply so he could be over with Allison and Danny, working on hitting stationary, _completely inanimate_ objects.

"You know I'll heal," Derek tells him, as if that makes it all okay.

It really, really doesn't. The thought of inflicting anything more serious upon his mate than a here-this-second-gone-the-next hickey during one of their many makeout sessions before and after pack meetings leaves Stiles feeling nauseous and shaky, which isn't anywhere near the right frame of mind to be handling a firearm anyway.

He chooses not to use that argument, because fluffy feelings have little to no place in training, and Derek probably wouldn't understand what the issue was. For someone so protective of Stiles, Derek finds it incredibly difficult to grasp the fact that Stiles would do anything it took to protect him in return. It is definitely a problem, and one Stiles has decided to spend the rest of his life working on. "Why can't we just go back out to the woods? I was just fine shooting Thumper and Bambi, thanks."

"Which was fine, but our freezer is so overstocked with rabbit and venison, we'll be lucky if we get through all of it before all of you graduate. Besides, you know you need to be able to shoot things that move faster than rabbits and deer." The two of them both turn their heads to stare at the large refrigerator Jackson bought for the pack two weeks after he and Danny both joined. As sleek and new as it is, it looks outlandish amongst their derelict den, along with the bright red cooler sitting beside it that Stiles uses when he wants to take some of the meat home to cook the night before a pack meeting. Still, it has been the best solution to all of the game Stiles has been taking down for target practice that anyone has come up with so far.

They all appreciate the irony of Stiles being the one responsible for thinning out the forest's population, in spite of the majority of the pack turning rabid and hairy at least once a month.

Eventually, Stiles turns back to face Derek again. "Okay, but that doesn't mean I should start shooting _you_ instead. There has to be a better way to handle this."

"Well, unless anyone else is willing to volunteer-"

"Derek, no! I don't care who it is, and you can't even tell me you'd be okay with me shooting someone else in the pack, so don't even try to lie." Aggravated beyond belief, Stiles rubs both hands through his hair, making it even more ruffled than it normally is since he began letting it grow out. "Look, we both know I'm a good shot. I honestly don't think this is necessary." Glancing back at Derek, he asks, "Unless there's something you know that I don't."

His mate stares back at him silently for a moment, then tells him, "We should get the others before we discuss this."

"Oh, crap." So there is something.

He shouldn't be surprised. Things have been going far too well for the pack since the Friday night after the incident at the bomb shelter where they formally accepted Danny and Jackson, explaining to Danny about werewolves and what had happened to Jackson after he received the bite. No one was more surprised than Jackson when, on the next full moon, he wolfed out right along with the rest of the betas in the pack. Perhaps they should have expected it though, since no one had taken Matt's place as kanima master, though Gerard Argent had kept an uncomfortably close watch on Jackson ever since Matt's parents reported him missing, and later on the police department declared him deceased. Purely based off of what they understand regarding the creation of the kanima, Stiles has theorized that Danny - one of the few people Jackson can say with certainty that he loves and loves him in return - recognizing and responding to Jackson while he was transformed, was enough to break through the uncertainty that had been keeping him from finding himself and making the transition from human to werewolf.

Since that first full moon when they all discovered Jackson was not, in fact, a snake anymore, he applied himself to his training with an intensity which would have worried everyone if it had been anyone else. His unwavering dedication often leads to him challenging the other betas, not out of malicious intent, but out of the drive he has always had to do better, be better than anyone else.

As Stiles follows Derek out of the train car, he sincerely hopes that Jackson will not have a reason to test his new abilities against more than just Derek and the other betas in the pack, but cannot shake the feeling that his hopes are about to be dashed. He and his mate pause once they are out in the open, taking in the organized chaos of training.

Playful snarls and snaps echo around the wide open space of the den. Two blonde young weres feint and dodge and lunge at each other, one with eyes glowing gold, the other, brilliant blue. The others call out advice and encouragements, as well as the occasional jibe. Off to one side, a young woman moves to correct her pupil's stance, then helps him to steady his aim. "Breathe in... and fire." The arrow hits slightly off-center, and she claps the novice's shoulder. "Much better! Keep this up, and you'll be shooting better than me in no time."

A dull crash and a triumphant, "Gotcha!" draws their attention away from the makeshift archery range, and they turn to take in the sight of the victor, her neck bent so that she may stare down at her opponent.

"Yeah, yeah," Jackson grumbles, "I almost had you that time."

"Oh, sure," Erica scoffs. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

He growls, and then hears his mate say firmly, "Calm down, Jacks. No one starts out being the best at everything." Immediately, he calms and shifts back into his human form. This may or may not result in a few gleeful whispers of the word, "Whipped," being exchanged, because they may have seen a lot more than the average group of teenagers, but that unfortunately has not resulted in an increase in maturity for any one of them.

"Fine. Whatever. Will you let me up now?" he demands, still irritated.

Baring her teeth in a downright predatory grin, she asks, "Oh, but why would I want to do that?"

Derek chooses that moment to step in before the playful teasing can escalate into something more primal and violent, telling Erica, "Because there's something we need to talk about."

Everyone looks over at Derek, and Erica hastens to scramble off of Jackson, offering him a hand and then helping to heave him up from the floor to the tune of several bones snapping back into alignment. Stiles would miss the days where he didn't have to consider that sound completely unremarkable, but if that was still his life, he wouldn't have all of these people in it, and that would be beyond tragic. He never wants a day to go by that he does not receive at least one text or have a conversation with each and every one of these people - yes, even Jackson - because Stiles never realized how much he needed all of them in his life before, but he knows now that there were gaping holes that they all fill, and so it's not that he _can't_ imagine his life without them in it, it's that he hates viscerally the very thought of it.

They have a routine down for discussions like this, Boyd and Scott setting up Sasha Stilinski's hideous old card tables while Isaac, Erica, Danny, and Allison get the chairs and Derek and Stiles get drinks and snacks together. It helps to keep everyone calm and convivial, having a sort of ritual, as well as supplying them with munchables. Nothing calms down an adolescent werewolf quite like the promise of food.

When everyone is situated, Derek stands before them, looking at his pack, seeing in their quiet focus and patience how far they have all come, both as individuals and as what, for each of them, has become their second family. He breathes in deep, taking in all of the scents he has come to love, has grown to recognize in the midst of a crowd and clear across their small town. The beating of their hearts fills his ears, more beautiful and natural than any musical arrangement.

The peaceful moment stretches out and then he sighs, preparing to break it. "What you have to understand is that for a new alpha, the first and most important instinct is to see to the strength of his pack. When Jackson came asking for the bite, nothing could have stopped me from giving it to him, regardless of my original opinion on the matter. And after giving in to what my instincts wanted once? The rest was inevitable. But building a pack isn't something that can go unnoticed for long, and certain events have drawn even more attention than simple pack building would." There is a rash of uncomfortable shifting at the reference to Jackson's time as the kanima, however light it may have been, but they still soon enough. Derek takes their period of distraction to pull out his phone and find the image he needs to share with them, passing it first to Stiles, who quirks a curious eyebrow at him before examining the photo and biting his bottom lip.

"Wait, Derek, this is-"

"The front door of the house. Yes." The others glance from Derek to Stiles, the growing anxiety in the air between the two of them testing their collective patience. "Our pack has managed to catch the attention of the alpha pack. I've sensed them around town for the last few weeks. They hadn't done anything until yesterday, when I found their symbol painted on the door."

Before anyone else can start to ask things like, 'Why didn't we hear about this sooner?' or 'A pack of alphas? Really? How does that even work?' since that way lies panic and chaos, Stiles passes Derek's phone off to Erica, who is sprawling with a now carefully affected nonchalance in the chair next to his, and asks, "So, what exactly does this mean?"

Sending him a grateful glance, Derek speaks to the pack when he answers, "It means they're tired of just watching us. So, from now on, no one is allowed to go out alone. Keep the others in the pack updated on where you are. Do not turn off your phones. Do not go out into the woods unless expressly told otherwise. Do not approach a member of the alpha pack. This is basic common sense. This pack protects its own, but we can't keep you safe if you won't take the necessary precautions."

The soft clearing of his throat draws everyone's attention to Isaac, who has slumped down in his seat on the other side of Stiles, looking shy and painfully awkward. "Ah, who will I be with? If I need to go somewhere?" He drags his eyes up from where he had been examining the garish flower pattern of the card table, looking over everyone else in the pack. "It's just, you all are obviously going to be with whoever you're, y'know, _with_, and *I don't have anyone, so."

Stiles can't help the quiet sound of distress he makes at this before he puts his hand around the back of Isaac's neck and squeezes slightly, his lips curling up at the corners when he feels Isaac lean into the touch. "You'll be with me, dude."

"Or with me," Erica and Scott both volunteer quickly.

Pushing down the swell of affection he feels at seeing members of the pack working to reassure another, Derek raises an eyebrow at all of them. "Now that we've got that taken care of. Let's discuss things we can do to keep this from escalating. Allison," he calls, "what are things looking like with your family? Have you heard anything?"

The rest of the meeting passes with talk of the hunters, of contingency plans, and areas each of them need to progress in with their training. It could almost be a typical ending to an evening spent with the pack, but for the underlying sense of urgency Derek's news lends to everything they say and do. Eventually though, things start winding down, and they break up into the groups in which they will be leaving. Erica, Boyd, and Isaac are the last to tell Derek and Stiles their goodbyes after helping to move the tables and chairs back to their home against the far wall. Stiles watches them go and then sighs, turning to walk toward Derek.

His feet keep going until he is close enough for Derek's arms to wrap around his waist, pulling him closer still. Turning his head slightly, he presses his face into Derek's neck, breathing in leather and forest and amber and _Derek_, and it's not weird, because he _knows_ his mate is doing it, too, regardless of how much more discreet he is about that fact. "We'll get through this, right? I mean, somehow, we always do."

"Yeah," Derek says, voice little more than a whisper. "Yeah, we do."

Grinning slightly, Stiles warns him, "I'm still not shooting you."

He can hear the answering half-grin in the words, "We'll see."


End file.
